Serial Killer Documentary： Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker)

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The bride wore a calf-length white wedding dress with long
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lace sleeves. The groom wore a starched set of prison blues.
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The pants, a little too long, the shirt tails hanging out.
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She was glowing. He was nervous. On October 3, 1996,
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the ceremony took place in the large, gray-walled main visiting
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room of California's San Quentin Prison. According to Jim Doyle,
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writing the San Francisco Chronicle, the bride, Doreen Leoy, age 41,
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was a freelance magazine editor with a bachelor's degree in
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English and an IQ of 152. The groom, serial killer
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and rapist Richard Ramirez, was on death row, awaiting execution.
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Seven years earlier, in 1989, Ramirez had been convicted on
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43 counts, including 13 murders, and the authorities have good
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reason to believe that he had committed several others. For
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over a year, starting in the spring of 1985, the
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residents of Los Angeles County lived in fear of the
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anonymous Night Stalker, as he was called, forcing many to
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alter their nighttime habits and install better locks on their
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doors and windows, and invest in electronic security systems. The
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newspapers dubbed him the Night Stalker because he always attacked
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at night like a vampire. The visiting room at San Quentin,
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with its rows of orange plastic seats bolted to the
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floor and various vending machines lined up against one wall,
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was crowded that day with other prisoners and family members
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who had come on their appointed visiting day. Many of
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them stared at the infamous inmate and kept their distance,
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even though the Night Stalker seemed considerably less ferocious than
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he had been when he had spooked the courtroom at
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his lengthy trial back in 1989. Instead of his signature
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dark glasses, Ramirez, now age 36, wore round prescription glasses.
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He moved a bit hesitantly and seemed ill at ease.
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The long-haired brunette who longed to be the Night Stalker's
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bride had first contacted Ramirez after his arrest in 1985.
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and had written him nearly 75 letters during his incarceration.
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He finally proposed to her in 1988, but prison rules
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delayed their wedding. Other women tried to steal him away
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from her, visiting him in prison and lavishing him with
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all kinds of attention. Doreen often ran into them when
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she came for her visits, and at least one woman
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threatened physical violence if Doreen didn't abandon her claim on
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the Night Stalker. But Doreen persevered, and in the end,
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she got her man. She claimed to be a virgin
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at the time of their wedding, and marrying Ramirez wouldn't
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change that because conjugal visits are not permitted for death
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row inmates. According to Philip Carlo, author of The Night Stalker,
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Ramirez was drawn to her precisely because she was a virgin.
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Doreen had been raised a Roman Catholic, but she considered
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herself an agnostic and could accommodate Ramirez's professed Satanism. When
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she had purchased their wedding rings, she'd bought a gold
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band for herself but a platinum band for her husband
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to be. Satanists don't wear gold, he'd explained to her.
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The civil ceremony started at 11.10 a.m. and was performed
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by Mr. L. Wester, who joined two other inmates to
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their brides that morning. Ramirez's sister Ruth, his brother Joseph,
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and Joseph's teenage daughter attended. Ramirez cautioned his niece to
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pull down her skirt. He knew other inmates were ogling her.
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As the couple said their vows, Doreen was bursting with
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joy and happiness. Her long-awaited dream was finally coming true.
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She was becoming Mrs. Richard Ramirez. Doreen chose not to
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believe the mountain of evidence that had been presented at
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her husband's trial, especially the testimony that described his gruesome methods.
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Richard Ramirez typically came in the night, sneaking into his
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victim's bedrooms. Males were dispatched quickly, usually with a bullet
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to the head. Females were kept alive to be savored
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after he ransacked the homes, looking for valuables. After raping
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and degrading the women, sometimes repeatedly, he would most often
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kill them, or at least try to. Amazingly, some of
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his victims managed to survive his various attacks. Of all
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the serial killers who have plagued the modern world, the
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Night Stalker was perhaps the most sensational in how he
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committed his crimes. He was a living nightmare, a boogeyman,
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who invaded bedrooms and tore innocent people from their dreams.
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His method was worthy of a B-grade Hollywood horror movie.
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He was a killer tailor-made for his prime hunting ground,
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Los Angeles. In 1978, 18-year-old Ricardo Levia, a.k.a. Richard Ramirez,
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moved to Southern California from El Paso, Texas, his hometown.
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According to UPI reporters Aurelio Rojas and K-Mac Zisk, he
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dropped out of the ninth grade and had been living
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the life of a slacker, smoking marijuana and living on
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convenience store junk food. His diet was so rich in sugar,
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his teeth eventually started to rot, which made his breath
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foul and offensive. But his halitosis fit in with the
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demonic personality he was intentionally cultivating. His habitual pot smoking
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led to several arrests for possession. as well as a
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misdemeanor theft charge. In California, he was twice arrested for
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auto theft, in Pasadena in 1981 and Los Angeles in 1984.
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His father would remain that Richard was a good boy
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whose marijuana consumption put him out of control, but it
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would be hard to pinpoint precisely what influences sent Richard
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Ramirez in the direction of devil worship. He often drew
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the five-point pentagram, the symbol of the devil, on his
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own body, and after his trial, he would shout, Hail Satan!
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in open court. He was a big fan of rock
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bands who sung about Satanism, particularly the Australian heavy metal
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band ACDC, whose album, Highway to Hell, was Ramirez's absolute favorite.
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One song on the album, Night Prowler, contains the lyrics,
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Was that a noise outside your window? What's that shadow
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on the blind? As you lie there naked like a
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body in a tomb, suspended animation as I slip into
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your room. But it's hard to believe that rock songs
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and marijuana alone could turn a misdirected youth into one
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of the most heinous serial rapists and murderers in modern history.
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The turning point in Ramirez's life might well have been
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the night he witnessed his cousin Mike murder his wife.
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Mike had fought as a Green Beret in Vietnam, but
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the war had changed him. After returning home, he boasted
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torturing and mutilating the enemy and and had brought back
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Polaroids to prove it. He and his 13-year-old cousin Richard
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would hang out all day, getting high, which is just
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what they were doing when Mike's wife started to nag
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him about getting his life together and finding a job.
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Mike pulled out a gun to shut her up and
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shot her in the face, killing her. Ramirez was splattered
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with the woman's blood. Mike's lawyer pointed to the incredible
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stress of his horrible war experiences as a mitigating factor.
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He was ultimately convicted, but the judge was lenient in
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his sentencing. Mike had a significant influence on Richard, who
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became fascinated with Mike's war victim's horrible photographs. After the
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murder of Mike's wife, Richard, the epileptic youngest child in
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a family of three boys and two sisters, started skipping
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school and smoking pot as much as he could every day.
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He soon took to stealing to support his drug use.
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The police have no evidence that Richard Ramirez killed at
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any time before he reached Los Angeles and little is
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known about his activities in the first few years he
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lived there. No doubt, his crimes were escalating during this period.
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Simple theft had led to breaking and entering and eventually,
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he must have become adept at it. Initially, he probably
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stole whatever valuables he could find, then quickly left before
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he was caught. But as he grew more proficient, he
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also grew bolder Staying longer in the houses he burglarized.
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Perhaps he stayed to watch the inhabitants sleeping in their beds.
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Maybe he took souvenirs, particularly items that belonged to the
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female residents. Like his cousin Mike, he might even have
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taken photographs that he could relish later. This, no doubt,
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excited him and helped him develop the depraved fantasies that
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took over his thinking. But eventually, he felt compelled to
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do more. The horrible scenes that ran through his mind
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like a horror movie on a continuous loop weren't satisfying
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him anymore. They had to emerge from his mind and
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become a reality. When Richard Ramirez finally crossed that line
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and started to play out his fantasies, the Night Stalker
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was born. Whether by conscious decision or inevitable evolution, Ramirez
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began to insert himself into his depraved fantasies and actively
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participate in their reenactment for his own gratification. His first
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known victim was a 79-year-old Glassell Park resident named Jenny Vincow.
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On June 28, 1984, she had left a window open
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because it had been hot that evening. Ramirez simply removed
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the screen and climbed in. Vincao's son, who lived in
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the apartment over her ground floor apartment, discovered her body
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sprawled out on the bed. She had been stabbed repeatedly,
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and her throat was slashed so savagely she was nearly decapitated.
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The intruder also ransacked her apartment and helped himself to
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her valuables. fingerprints were recovered from the windowsill, and the
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autopsy revealed signs of sexual assault, the Night Stalker's fantasy
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had finally become a reality. It would be eight months
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before he struck again. No doubt Richard Ramirez, like most
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budding serial killers, fed off the memory of his first victim,
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reliving the experience of rape and murder over and over
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again in his mind. If he had taken what criminal
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profiles call a souvenir, a hairbrush, a piece of underwear, eyeglasses,
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any object intimately connected with the victim. He might have
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used that to stoke his recollections and help him elaborate
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on his fantasy. But eventually, the mental reenactment of that
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initial crime wouldn't be as satisfying as it had once been.
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The killer would need a new experience to replenish the fantasy.
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He might have tried to control himself for a period,
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but the pressure within him was mounting. Eventually, he would
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give in to his compulsion. and do it again. On
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March 17, 1985, at 11.30 p.m., 20-year-old Angela Barrios was
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just returning home from a long day at work. She
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lived in a condominium that she shared with a roommate
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in Rosemead, a middle-class town northeast of Los Angeles. She
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pulled her car into the driveway and opened the garage
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door with a remote control. She was tired and hadn't
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had dinner yet. All she wanted to do was get
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inside and unwind. but as she got out of her car,
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she heard something behind her. A dark figure suddenly rushed
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up to her. He was tall and dressed entirely in black.
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A navy blue baseball cap was pulled down low over
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his brow. He was holding a gun. He pointed the
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gun in her face, holding it just inches from her nose.
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She pleaded with him not to kill her. She tried
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not to look at his face, hoping that he might
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spare her, but she couldn't help but look. His eyes
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were cold and hard. She continued to beg for mercy,
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but he ignored her. Perhaps he was angered by her pleading,
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and he pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot
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was like an explosion in the enclosed garage. Angela collapsed
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on the concrete floor. She was alive, but too afraid
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to move. The gunman stepped over her and went to
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the door that led to her condo, kicking her body
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out of the way so he could open it. Angela
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lay perfectly still, laying dead. After a while, she didn't
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know how long. She realized that her hand was bleeding.
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Her keys were still in that hand. She'd raised her
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hands instinctively when the man had menaced her with the gun,
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and the bullet had miraculously hit the keys and ricocheted away.
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Angela collected herself and got to her feet. She had
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started to run out of the garage when she heard
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another gunshot behind her. She kept running, just hoping to escape,
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but she ran into the man in black as he
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came out the front door of her condo. She tried
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to get away from him, but her legs were shaky.
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She stumbled back towards her car in the garage, convinced
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that he was going to finish her off. But instead
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of pursuing her, the man shoved the gun into his
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belt and fled. Angela Barrios was saved from this madman.
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Her roommate, Dale Okakazi, age 34, wasn't so lucky. Angela
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found her face down on the kitchen floor in a
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pool of her own blood. There was blood everywhere, on
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the walls, furniture, and appliances. Angela ran to her side
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to check for signs of life, but Okakazi had been
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shot through the forehead. Angela grabbed the phone and called 911. Later,
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when the police searched the crime scene, they found the
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killer's baseball cap in the garage. What happened exactly inside
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the condominium is unknown, but for some reason, Killing Dale
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Okazaki was not the experience Richard Ramirez had hoped for. Incredibly,
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that same night he struck again in nearby Monterey Park.
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According to author Clifford L. Leindecker, a policeman was dispatched
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to investigate an empty yellow Chevrolet parked with its motor running.
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The transmission was in reverse. The car parked behind it
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was keeping it from moving any farther. When the officer
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got out of his patrol car to check inside the vehicle,
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he found an unconscious woman lying on the ground nearby.
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The officer ran to her and immediately checked her vital signs.
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He noticed that her stockings were ripped and that there
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was an ugly bruise on her leg. She was alive,
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but just barely. He ran back to his car and
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radioed for an ambulance. When he returned to the woman,
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he discovered a metal medallion and a torn section of
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a $ 20 bill on the pavement. He tried to revive her,
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hoping she could tell him what had happened, but her
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breathing was labored. He could tell she was in trouble
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and needed immediate medical attention, but in the dim light,
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he hadn't noticed that she had been shot several times.
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The woman, a 30-year-old Taiwanese native named Xia Lian Yu,
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known to her friends as Victoria, died before the ambulance arrived.
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The killer was in a frenzy. Killing Dale Okazaki had
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not satisfied his need, so on the spur of the moment,
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he had attacked Xia Lian Yu. but murdering and assaulting
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her might not have done it for him because he
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murdered an 8-year-old girl in Eagle Rock, California, three days later.
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A week later, on March 27, 1984, he emerged again,
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and this time he found an M.O. that worked for him.
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On the morning of March 27, 1984, Peter Zazera arrived
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at his parents' home in Whittier, California. His 64-year-old father, Vincent,
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had retired from investment counseling and now operated his pizzeria.
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His mother, Maxine, 44, was an attorney. Peter rang the
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bell several times, but no one answered, so he let
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himself in. What he found was horrifying. His father's body
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was on the sofa in the den. He'd been shot
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through the left temple. He appeared to have died instantly. Mrs.
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Azara was found stretched out in bed, face up and naked.
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Her eyes had been gouged out, the bloody sockets empty.
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She'd been stabbed repeatedly around the face, neck, abdomen, and groin.
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There was a sizable, T-shaped knife wound in her left breast.
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An autopsy later revealed that, like her husband, she'd first
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been shot in the head and had probably died instantly.
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The stabbing and mutilation were done post-mortem. The house had
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been ransacked and valuables were taken. With these killings, Richard
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00:17:01.629 --> 00:17:05.339
Ramirez had discovered a method that accomplished his goals and
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satisfied his fantasy, for he repeated it many times. Dispatch
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the mail quickly to get him out of the way
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so that he could have his perverse way with the
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woman in the house. The man was just an impediment
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and not part of the fantasy. The woman was the
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real object of desire. Six weeks later, Richard Ramirez returned
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to Monterey Park and broke into the home of Harold
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00:17:28.579 --> 00:17:32.589
and Jean Wu, waking them from a sound sleep. Ramirez
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took care of Mr. Wu first, shooting the 66-year-old man
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through the head. He pummeled Mrs. Wu, 63, viciously with
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his fists, demanding to know where she kept her money.
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She was too worried about her husband to be coherent,
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so he bound her hands behind her back with thumb
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cuffs to keep her still as he searched the house.
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After he found what he wanted, he returned to the bedroom,
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dragged the tiny woman to the side of the bed,
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00:17:58.289 --> 00:18:03.089
and raped her. When he was finished, he left. Mr. Wu, however,
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00:18:03.390 --> 00:18:07.039
was not dead. Despite his terrible head wound, he'd managed
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to crawl to the den where he dialed 911. He
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00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:13.039
could not tell the dispatcher what the problem was, but
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the call was traced and an ambulance and patrol car
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00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:19.279
were dispatched to the Wu's address. Harold Wu was rushed
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00:18:19.299 --> 00:18:22.869
to the hospital but died later that night. Jean Wu
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00:18:23.150 --> 00:18:25.950
was treated for her injuries. She was able to give
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00:18:25.990 --> 00:18:30.789
the police a physical description of her attacker. Two weeks later,
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00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:34.990
on May 30th, Ruth Wilson, 41, was awakened in the
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00:18:35.009 --> 00:18:37.710
middle of the night by a flashlight shining in her face.
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00:18:38.329 --> 00:18:41.809
Ramirez had silently broken into her Burbank home and was
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holding a gun to her head. He ordered her to
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00:18:44.549 --> 00:18:47.650
get out of bed and go to her 12-year-old son's room.
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00:18:48.289 --> 00:18:51.009
Ramirez jumped on the boy's bed and put a gun
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to the child's head, warning Ruth Wilson not to make
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a sound. He handcuffed the boy and locked him in
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a closet. Don't look at me. He snarled at Ruth.
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If you look at me again, I'll shoot you. Assuming
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00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:06.619
he was a burglar, she offered to give him her
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00:19:06.660 --> 00:19:10.880
most valuable possession, a gold and diamond necklace. She led
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00:19:10.900 --> 00:19:13.049
him to the dresser in her bedroom where she kept it,
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hoping that this would placate him. But it didn't. After
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00:19:17.009 --> 00:19:19.789
rummaging through the house, he ordered her to turn around
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00:19:20.069 --> 00:19:22.589
and put her hands together. He tied her up behind
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00:19:22.630 --> 00:19:25.529
her back with a pair of pantyhose. He then shoved
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her onto the bed as she pleaded with him. After
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00:19:28.549 --> 00:19:31.940
tearing off her pink nightgown, he raped and sodomized her.
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00:19:32.779 --> 00:19:34.880
His breath was so hot and foul as he lay
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00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:39.140
on her, she nearly gagged. Ruth Wilson told Ramirez he
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00:19:39.180 --> 00:19:42.059
must have had a very unhappy life to have done
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00:19:42.099 --> 00:19:44.630
this to her. He told her she looked pretty good
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00:19:44.670 --> 00:19:47.009
for her age and said he would let her live
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even though he had killed many others. When she complained
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00:19:50.680 --> 00:19:53.839
that the pantyhose around her wrists were cutting off her circulation,
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he loosened them for her and brought her a robe
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00:19:56.740 --> 00:19:59.579
before taking her son out of the closet and handcuffing
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00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:03.740
them side by side. Ramirez left them there. Later, the
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00:20:03.779 --> 00:20:07.140
boy was able to get to a phone and call 911.
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00:20:07.140 --> 00:20:10.059
When the police asked Ruth to describe her attacker, She
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00:20:10.119 --> 00:20:12.720
told them that he was a tall Hispanic with long,
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00:20:12.799 --> 00:20:16.690
dark hair. The attacks continued, throwing the city of Los
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00:20:16.769 --> 00:20:20.450
Angeles into a state of panic. One police official referred
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00:20:20.470 --> 00:20:24.509
to the killer rapist as the Valley Intruder. The newspapers
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00:20:24.589 --> 00:20:28.089
dubbed him the Midnight Stalker, conjuring up images of a
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00:20:28.170 --> 00:20:32.410
modern-day Dracula or Jack the Ripper. But Ramirez was just
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00:20:32.490 --> 00:20:36.039
getting started. In the spring of 1985, he was going
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00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:39.700
through a period of escalation. By the summer, He was
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00:20:39.789 --> 00:20:45.990
on a full-blown rampage. On May 29th, Malvia Keller, 83,
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00:20:45.990 --> 00:20:49.549
and her invalid sister Blanche Wolfe, 80, were found in
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00:20:49.609 --> 00:20:53.630
Keller's Monrovia home. Both women had been beaten so severely
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00:20:53.650 --> 00:20:56.190
with a hammer that the handle was split when the
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00:20:56.230 --> 00:20:59.859
police found it. Blanche had a puncture wound above one ear.
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00:21:00.460 --> 00:21:03.539
An inverted pentagram with a tip pointing down had been
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00:21:03.579 --> 00:21:07.660
drawn in lipstick on Malvia's inner thigh. a second pentagram
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00:21:07.700 --> 00:21:10.950
was found on the bedroom wall over Blanche's comatose body.
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00:21:11.609 --> 00:21:15.650
Ramirez had tried to rape Malvia, the older sister. Police
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00:21:15.710 --> 00:21:18.690
experts estimated that the sisters had been there about two
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00:21:18.730 --> 00:21:22.660
days after the attack before being discovered. Doctors were able
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00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:26.319
to revive Blanche, but Malvia soon died of her injuries.
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00:21:27.339 --> 00:21:30.549
One month later, on June 27th, the Night Stalker raped
339
00:21:30.680 --> 00:21:34.750
a six-year-old girl in Arcadia. A day later, the body
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00:21:34.769 --> 00:21:39.039
of 32-year-old Patty Elaine Higgins was found in her Arcadia home.
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Her throat slit. Five days later, on July 2nd, the
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00:21:43.759 --> 00:21:47.339
body of 75-year-old Mary Louise Cannon was found in her
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Arcadia home. Like Patty Higgins, she had been beaten. Her
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00:21:51.470 --> 00:21:55.910
throat slit. The house had been ransacked. On July 5th,
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00:21:56.230 --> 00:22:00.849
Ramirez returned to Arcadia and beat 16-year-old Deidre Palmer savagely
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00:22:00.890 --> 00:22:05.539
with a tire iron. She survived her injuries. Two days later,
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00:22:05.839 --> 00:22:09.309
on July 7th, the body of Joyce Lucille Nelson was
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00:22:09.400 --> 00:22:13.210
found in her home in Monterey Park. The 61-year-old had
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been beaten to death with a blunt object. Later that
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same night in Monterey Park, Linda Fortuna, a 63-year-old registered nurse,
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00:22:21.809 --> 00:22:25.750
was awakened at around 3.30 a.m. by a tall, bony
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00:22:25.769 --> 00:22:29.119
man dressed in black. The man, who fit the description
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00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:31.559
of the night stalker, was pointing a gun at her.
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He ordered her out of bed and into the bathroom,
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warning her to be quiet. After ransacking the house, he
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00:22:38.819 --> 00:22:42.079
returned to her, forcing her back onto her bed. He
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00:22:42.119 --> 00:22:44.700
attempted to rape and sodomize her, but he could not
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maintain an erection. He was frustrated and humiliated, and she
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00:22:48.849 --> 00:22:52.250
was sure he would kill her. He screamed at her furiously,
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00:22:52.630 --> 00:22:55.369
but then gathered up the valuables he wanted and left.
361
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She was astounded that he had spared her life. Less
362
00:22:59.509 --> 00:23:02.599
than two weeks later, on July 20th, The night stalker
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00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:06.089
chose a new location in the Los Angeles area, Glendale.
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00:23:06.789 --> 00:23:10.730
Maxson Kneeling and his wife Lila, both 66, were found
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in their bed, both shot in the head and horribly
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slashed with a knife. Maxson had been butchered so brutally,
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his head was barely attached to his body. Police experts
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00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:24.920
had difficulty recreating the attack based on the evidence. It's
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possible that the stalker killed them both quickly with his gun,
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00:23:28.549 --> 00:23:32.890
then mutilated them post-mortem. but given his developing M.O., it's
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possible that he kept Mrs. Kneeling alive to play out
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00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:38.940
his perverse fantasy. But he also might have failed to
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perform sexually with Mrs. Kneeling, just as he had with
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Linda Fortuna. So he turned July 20th into a doubleheader,
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striking again, this time in Sun Valley. Chetat Asawahem, 32,
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00:23:53.289 --> 00:23:57.970
was shot in his sleep. His wife, Sakima, 29, was raped,
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00:23:58.349 --> 00:24:02.240
forced to perform oral sex on the intruder, then beaten mercilessly.
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He then sodomized the couple's 8-year-old son. Ramirez tied Mrs.
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00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:11.339
Asawahem in her bedroom and left, but not before taking $ 30, 000
380
00:24:10.980 --> 00:24:16.750
in cash and jewelry. On August 6, Ramirez targeted another couple,
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00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:22.549
Christopher and Virginia Peterson, ages 38 and 27. Following his pattern,
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00:24:22.930 --> 00:24:26.589
Ramirez broke into the Petersons' Northridge bedroom and shot them
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00:24:26.690 --> 00:24:31.069
both in the head. But they didn't die. In fact, Mr. Peterson,
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00:24:31.490 --> 00:24:34.589
a powerfully built truck driver, got out of bed and
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00:24:34.670 --> 00:24:38.170
chased the intruder away despite having a bullet lodged in
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00:24:38.210 --> 00:24:43.819
his brain. Miraculously, the Petersons survived their wounds. Two nights
387
00:24:43.920 --> 00:24:47.480
after the attack of the Petersons, Ramirez lashed out again,
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00:24:47.940 --> 00:24:51.720
this time in Diamond Bar, California, and this time he
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00:24:51.789 --> 00:24:55.990
had it his way. Ahmed Zia, 35, was shot in
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00:24:56.029 --> 00:24:59.019
the head and killed while he slept. With the husband
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00:24:59.059 --> 00:25:01.680
out of the way, Ramirez was free to play out
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00:25:01.720 --> 00:25:05.619
his fantasy with Zia's wife, Sue Kia Zia, 28. The
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00:25:06.460 --> 00:25:09.769
night stalker raped her, sodomized her, and forced her to
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00:25:09.809 --> 00:25:14.130
perform fellatio on him. This was Ramirez's MO played out
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00:25:14.210 --> 00:25:16.930
the way he liked it, and the experts who profiled
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00:25:16.970 --> 00:25:19.430
him believed that this was the way he would attack
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00:25:19.609 --> 00:25:23.650
again and again, probably adding a little something more each time,
398
00:25:24.109 --> 00:25:27.609
a new perversion, a twist on an old predilection, and
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00:25:27.690 --> 00:25:33.349
most likely increasing the physical brutality. Los Angeles County was terrified.
400
00:25:33.869 --> 00:25:37.450
The Night Stalker's crimes were becoming more frequent. The cooling-off
401
00:25:37.509 --> 00:25:41.329
periods were shortening, and his rage was escalating. There was
402
00:25:41.390 --> 00:25:44.809
little doubt that he would strike again. The only question
403
00:25:44.970 --> 00:25:49.099
was where and when. But as it turned out, Ramirez
404
00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:52.880
decided to abandon his familiar territory. After the attack on
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00:25:52.900 --> 00:25:59.079
the Ziaz, he headed north. On August 18, 1985, Peter
406
00:25:59.119 --> 00:26:02.640
and Barbara Pan were found in their blood-soaked bed in
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00:26:02.680 --> 00:26:06.890
Lake Merced, a suburb of San Francisco. Both had been
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00:26:06.950 --> 00:26:11.369
shot in the head. Mr. Pan, a 66-year-old accountant, was
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00:26:11.430 --> 00:26:16.230
pronounced dead at the scene. Mrs. Pan, 64, survived but
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00:26:16.279 --> 00:26:18.220
would be an invalid for the rest of her life.
411
00:26:19.019 --> 00:26:22.259
Scrawled on the wall in lipstick were an inverted pentagram
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00:26:22.599 --> 00:26:25.640
and the words, Jack the Knife. which is from a
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00:26:25.720 --> 00:26:29.660
song called The Ripper by the heavy metal band Judas Priest.
414
00:26:30.619 --> 00:26:33.440
Local police determined that the killer had come in through
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00:26:33.460 --> 00:26:36.890
an open window. Fearing that LA's Night Stalker had moved
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00:26:36.930 --> 00:26:40.789
into their precinct, homicide investigators sent a bullet removed from Mr.
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00:26:40.829 --> 00:26:44.509
Pan to a forensic team in Los Angeles. The bullet
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00:26:44.589 --> 00:26:47.910
matched others removed from two of the Night Stalker's Los
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00:26:47.990 --> 00:26:52.240
Angeles County crime scenes. Police in San Francisco searched their
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00:26:52.339 --> 00:26:55.750
unsolved homicide files and came up with two incidents that
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00:26:55.829 --> 00:27:00.730
fit the stalker's M.O. On February 20, 1985, sisters Mary
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00:27:00.809 --> 00:27:04.750
and Christina Caldwell, ages 70 and 50, had been stabbed
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00:27:04.789 --> 00:27:07.910
to death in their Telegraph Hill apartment. If this was
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00:27:07.970 --> 00:27:10.650
indeed the work of the night stalker, he had committed
425
00:27:10.710 --> 00:27:13.319
this crime about a month before the night he killed
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00:27:13.410 --> 00:27:18.960
Dale Okazaki and Xianlian Yu, and wounded Angela Berrios. The
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00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:22.220
police also discovered that on June 2nd, the day after
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00:27:22.269 --> 00:27:25.890
the murders of the elderly sisters Blanche Wolfe and Malvia Keller,
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00:27:26.369 --> 00:27:29.910
Theodore Wildings, 25, was shot in the head while he
430
00:27:29.970 --> 00:27:33.109
slept in his apartment in the Cow Hollow section of
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00:27:33.170 --> 00:27:38.819
San Francisco. His girlfriend, Nancy Bryan, 25, was then brutally
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00:27:38.900 --> 00:27:42.380
raped by the killer. Could the Night Stalker have been
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00:27:42.519 --> 00:27:46.759
active in San Francisco and Los Angeles throughout 1985 and
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00:27:46.779 --> 00:27:50.549
the police in San Francisco didn't realize it? Panic spread
435
00:27:50.589 --> 00:27:53.990
through the city by the bay. To quell fears, Mayor
436
00:27:54.009 --> 00:27:57.809
Dianne Feinstein talked publicly about the hunt for the Night Stalker,
437
00:27:58.230 --> 00:28:01.390
but in doing so, angered detectives by giving away too
438
00:28:01.410 --> 00:28:05.880
many details of his crimes, thus impeding their investigation. They
439
00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:08.839
did not want a repeat of the situation Los Angeles
440
00:28:08.859 --> 00:28:13.700
had just gone through. Fifteen unanswered attacks, including fourteen murders
441
00:28:13.819 --> 00:28:18.049
and five rapes, had been committed by a maddeningly elusive perpetrator.
442
00:28:18.769 --> 00:28:21.289
But the San Francisco police caught a break when the
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00:28:21.329 --> 00:28:24.150
manager of a flop house in the Tenderloin District came
444
00:28:24.250 --> 00:28:26.569
forward and claimed that a young man who fit the
445
00:28:26.589 --> 00:28:30.210
stalker's description had stayed at his establishment from time to
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00:28:30.250 --> 00:28:33.279
time over the past year and a half. The manager
447
00:28:33.339 --> 00:28:36.539
remembered that the man had rotten teeth and smelled terrible.
448
00:28:37.940 --> 00:28:40.059
The police checked the room he had last stayed in.
449
00:28:40.619 --> 00:28:43.940
On the bathroom door, they found a drawn pentagram. The
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00:28:43.980 --> 00:28:47.539
man had checked out during the day on August 17th. Mr.
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00:28:47.579 --> 00:28:51.359
and Mrs. Pan had been attacked that night. Investigators then
452
00:28:51.400 --> 00:28:54.440
located a man from the El Sobrante district who said
453
00:28:54.460 --> 00:28:57.289
he had purchased some jewelry, a diamond ring and a
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00:28:57.329 --> 00:28:59.710
pair of cufflinks, from a young man who fit the
455
00:28:59.730 --> 00:29:04.009
stalker's description. Further investigation revealed that these items had belonged
456
00:29:04.049 --> 00:29:07.589
to Mr. Pan. On August 24th, while the police in
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00:29:07.630 --> 00:29:10.359
San Francisco were scrambling to find the mysterious young man
458
00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:13.700
with rotten teeth, the night stalker had found another couple
459
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:16.960
whom he could use to play out his violent fantasy.
460
00:29:17.559 --> 00:29:20.980
Except this couple was not in the Bay Area. They
461
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:24.640
were asleep in bed in Mission Viejo, 50 miles south
462
00:29:24.920 --> 00:29:30.140
of Los Angeles. A computer engineer and his 29-year-old fiancé
463
00:29:30.420 --> 00:29:33.990
had just drifted off to sleep when loud gunshots suddenly
464
00:29:34.029 --> 00:29:37.630
awakened them in the room. Instinctively, she reached out to
465
00:29:37.670 --> 00:29:41.859
her fiancé, but he had been serialized. wounded. Before she
466
00:29:41.920 --> 00:29:44.480
realized what was happening, the intruder grabbed her by the
467
00:29:44.519 --> 00:29:47.579
hair and hauled her into another bedroom, where he tied
468
00:29:47.599 --> 00:29:51.240
her ankles and wrists with neckties. The man then asked
469
00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:54.069
her if she knew who he was, admitting that he
470
00:29:54.109 --> 00:29:56.329
was the killer who was getting all the press coverage
471
00:29:56.509 --> 00:30:00.099
and on television. He rummaged through the house looking for valuables,
472
00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:04.180
but there was nothing small enough to steal easily. Angry
473
00:30:04.220 --> 00:30:06.559
that the couple had so little, he returned to her
474
00:30:06.680 --> 00:30:10.849
and raped her, not once, but twice. The horrible stink
475
00:30:10.869 --> 00:30:13.829
of his breath made her gag. The man was still
476
00:30:13.910 --> 00:30:16.710
angry that there was nothing worth stealing. Afraid of what
477
00:30:16.750 --> 00:30:18.829
he might do next, she told him to look in
478
00:30:18.869 --> 00:30:21.420
a drawer where she knew her fiancé kept some money.
479
00:30:22.200 --> 00:30:25.480
Swear to Satan, he bellowed at her. Out of fright,
480
00:30:25.890 --> 00:30:28.089
She did what he wanted and swore to Satan that
481
00:30:28.130 --> 00:30:30.769
she was telling the truth. The stalker found the money,
482
00:30:31.089 --> 00:30:33.829
and as he counted it, he mocked her, telling her
483
00:30:33.890 --> 00:30:36.690
that this was what she was worth. It was what
484
00:30:36.710 --> 00:30:39.869
had saved her, he said. She prayed that this was
485
00:30:39.910 --> 00:30:42.289
the end of it, that he would just leave now
486
00:30:42.349 --> 00:30:44.930
that he had the cash. But he wasn't through with
487
00:30:44.970 --> 00:30:49.950
her yet. Swear your love for Satan, he demanded. Afraid
488
00:30:49.990 --> 00:30:52.650
of what he might do next, she did as he asked.
489
00:30:53.289 --> 00:30:56.789
I love Satan, she mumbled. He ordered her to say
490
00:30:56.829 --> 00:30:59.849
it again and again. He yanked her by the hair
491
00:30:59.970 --> 00:31:02.809
and made her kneel, then forced her to perform oral
492
00:31:02.849 --> 00:31:05.950
sex on him. When he was finished, he stepped back
493
00:31:06.089 --> 00:31:09.529
and stared at her. Still bound by the neckties, she
494
00:31:09.569 --> 00:31:11.569
was sure that he was going to shoot her just
495
00:31:11.630 --> 00:31:15.029
as he had shot her fiancé. But he didn't. He
496
00:31:15.109 --> 00:31:20.230
laughed at her. Then suddenly, he was gone. She quickly
497
00:31:20.289 --> 00:31:22.789
worked herself free of the neckties and went to the
498
00:31:22.849 --> 00:31:25.250
window in time to see him getting into an old
499
00:31:25.390 --> 00:31:31.099
orange-colored Toyota station wagon. She immediately called 911. Earlier that night,
500
00:31:31.539 --> 00:31:34.619
a teenager working on his motorcycle in his parents' garage
501
00:31:35.059 --> 00:31:38.119
noticed the orange Toyota driving into the neighborhood, and he
502
00:31:38.180 --> 00:31:40.900
saw it again as it was leaving. It struck him
503
00:31:40.940 --> 00:31:43.839
as suspicious, so he jotted down the license plate number.
504
00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:46.759
The next morning, he called the police about the car.
505
00:31:47.549 --> 00:31:50.690
With a plate number, the police determined that the 1976
506
00:31:50.690 --> 00:31:54.079
orange Toyota had been stolen in LA's Chinatown while the
507
00:31:54.210 --> 00:31:57.019
owner was dining at a restaurant. An alert was put
508
00:31:57.059 --> 00:31:59.460
out for the car, and two days later, it was
509
00:31:59.500 --> 00:32:03.180
located in the Rampart section of Los Angeles. The police
510
00:32:03.220 --> 00:32:06.599
kept the car under surveillance for nearly 24 hours, hoping
511
00:32:06.640 --> 00:32:09.380
that the night stalker would return for it, but he didn't.
512
00:32:10.180 --> 00:32:13.099
A forensics team scoured the car for evidence and came
513
00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:16.279
up with one good fingerprint, which they sent to Sacramento
514
00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:19.970
for analysis. Hours later, the computer had found a match.
515
00:32:20.490 --> 00:32:25.190
The print belonged to Ricardo Richard Levia Ramirez. Further analysis
516
00:32:25.250 --> 00:32:27.650
revealed that this print matched a print taken from a
517
00:32:27.710 --> 00:32:32.250
windowsill at the Pan's house near San Francisco. At long last,
518
00:32:32.579 --> 00:32:36.079
the police knew who their suspect was. Now they had
519
00:32:36.119 --> 00:32:40.240
to find him before he struck again. Seven days after
520
00:32:40.279 --> 00:32:43.059
the attack on the computer engineer and his fiancée in
521
00:32:43.099 --> 00:32:46.950
Mission Viejo, Ramirez was on the prowl for another vehicle
522
00:32:47.009 --> 00:32:50.490
he could steal. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong
523
00:32:50.529 --> 00:32:54.789
neighborhood to go shopping for cars. The 3700 block of
524
00:32:54.910 --> 00:32:57.910
East Hubbard Street in Los Angeles is in a largely
525
00:32:57.950 --> 00:33:02.119
Hispanic area. Perhaps Ramirez felt that he could blend in there,
526
00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:05.299
but he had no idea how fiercely these residents would
527
00:33:05.339 --> 00:33:09.240
protect their property. Ramirez's first mistake was trying to steal
528
00:33:09.259 --> 00:33:13.950
Faustino Pignon's prized red Mustang. Ramirez... who was wearing a
529
00:33:14.009 --> 00:33:17.789
black Jack Daniels t-shirt, had been hopping fences between yards,
530
00:33:18.309 --> 00:33:21.430
searching for a car he could steal easily. He'd been
531
00:33:21.450 --> 00:33:24.450
chased off the property next door to Pignon's home and
532
00:33:24.539 --> 00:33:28.180
wound up in Pignon's yard. Ramirez must have thought luck
533
00:33:28.220 --> 00:33:30.799
was with him because the Mustang parked in the driveway
534
00:33:30.839 --> 00:33:34.059
was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. He
535
00:33:34.119 --> 00:33:37.220
jumped in and started the engine, but he hadn't noticed
536
00:33:37.240 --> 00:33:39.940
that the car's owner was underneath the car on his back,
537
00:33:40.299 --> 00:33:44.470
working on the transmissions. As soon as Pignon, 56, heard
538
00:33:44.490 --> 00:33:46.910
the engine start, he rolled out from under the car.
539
00:33:47.470 --> 00:33:51.470
Incensed that anyone would dare touch his prized possession, Pignon
540
00:33:51.549 --> 00:33:54.380
reached through the window and grabbed Ramirez around the neck.
541
00:33:55.119 --> 00:33:59.099
I've got a gun, Ramirez warned, but Pignon didn't care.
542
00:33:59.700 --> 00:34:03.200
No one was going to take his car. Ramirez put
543
00:34:03.220 --> 00:34:05.880
the car into gear and tried to drive away, but
544
00:34:05.940 --> 00:34:09.320
Pignon wouldn't let go of him. The vehicle crashed into
545
00:34:09.380 --> 00:34:13.250
a fence, then into the garage. Pignon got the door open,
546
00:34:13.590 --> 00:34:17.469
hauled Ramirez out, and threw him to the ground. Ramirez
547
00:34:17.550 --> 00:34:20.239
scrambled to his feet and ran across the street, just
548
00:34:20.300 --> 00:34:24.079
as 28-year-old Angelina de la Torres was getting into her
549
00:34:24.159 --> 00:34:27.380
Ford Granada. He ran up to her car and stuck
550
00:34:27.420 --> 00:34:30.360
his head through the driver's window, demanding that she give
551
00:34:30.400 --> 00:34:33.199
him the keys, threatening in Spanish to kill her if
552
00:34:33.260 --> 00:34:38.210
she didn't. She screamed for help, and her husband, Manuel, 32,
553
00:34:38.210 --> 00:34:41.900
came running from the backyard. According to Nancy Skelton in
554
00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:44.659
the Los Angeles Times, he grabbed a length of metal
555
00:34:44.719 --> 00:34:47.000
fence post as he passed through the gate along the
556
00:34:47.059 --> 00:34:50.849
side of the house. In the meantime, Jose Bergoin, who
557
00:34:50.869 --> 00:34:54.389
had heard the ruckus in Faustino Pignon's driveway, had called
558
00:34:54.409 --> 00:34:57.730
the police. He ran outside to help Pignon, and when
559
00:34:57.769 --> 00:35:01.869
he heard Angela's scream, he called to his sons, Jamie, 21,
560
00:35:01.869 --> 00:35:05.840
and Julio, 17, to come quick. As the brothers ran
561
00:35:05.880 --> 00:35:08.849
to help Mrs. De La Torres, They saw the skinny
562
00:35:08.889 --> 00:35:12.809
stranger scrambling across the front seat of her car. Jamie
563
00:35:12.869 --> 00:35:15.380
recognized him from photographs that had been published in the
564
00:35:15.409 --> 00:35:19.480
newspapers and broadcast on television. He yelled that this was
565
00:35:19.519 --> 00:35:23.000
the killer, the Night Stalker. The men made a mad
566
00:35:23.059 --> 00:35:26.559
dash to catch him. Ramirez ran for his life, but
567
00:35:26.619 --> 00:35:29.360
Manuel de la Torres caught up with him and hit
568
00:35:29.380 --> 00:35:33.500
him across the neck with a three-and-a-half-foot metal post. Ramirez
569
00:35:33.559 --> 00:35:36.750
kept running, but de la Torres stayed on him, whacking
570
00:35:36.789 --> 00:35:41.239
him repeatedly from behind. Jamie Bergon caught up with Ramirez
571
00:35:41.469 --> 00:35:45.260
and punched him. Ramirez stumbled and fell, but quickly got
572
00:35:45.320 --> 00:35:48.239
up and continued running with de la Torres and the
573
00:35:48.280 --> 00:35:54.159
Bergoin brothers on his heels. Then, unexpectedly, Ramirez stopped and
574
00:35:54.239 --> 00:35:57.949
faced them. His eyes flashed as he laughed and stuck
575
00:35:58.030 --> 00:36:00.710
out his tongue at them. He played the part of
576
00:36:00.750 --> 00:36:04.119
the madman. but his pursuers were taken aback for only
577
00:36:04.159 --> 00:36:08.500
a moment. They lunged at him, and the chase continued. Finally,
578
00:36:08.519 --> 00:36:11.119
a block away from where it all began, de la
579
00:36:11.199 --> 00:36:14.550
Torres swung hard and hit Ramirez on the head. The
580
00:36:14.610 --> 00:36:19.050
night stalker collapsed to the ground. Jamie and Jose Balgoin
581
00:36:19.210 --> 00:36:21.570
closed in on him to keep him down until the
582
00:36:21.610 --> 00:36:26.610
police arrived. One day after, Richard Ramirez's face was made public,
583
00:36:26.989 --> 00:36:33.900
and the night stalker was in custody and behind bars. Ramirez, 26,
584
00:36:33.900 --> 00:36:37.940
was charged with 14 murders and 31 other felonies related
585
00:36:37.980 --> 00:36:42.179
to his 1985 murder, rape, and robbery spree upon his arrest.
586
00:36:42.900 --> 00:36:46.119
The 15th murder in San Francisco also hung over his head,
587
00:36:46.699 --> 00:36:49.139
with the potential for a trial in Orange County for
588
00:36:49.219 --> 00:36:52.480
rape and attempted murder. Early in the case, two public
589
00:36:52.519 --> 00:36:55.579
defenders were appointed to Richard Ramirez, but he disliked them.
590
00:36:56.400 --> 00:36:59.590
Another defense attorney came and went before the Ramirez family
591
00:36:59.789 --> 00:37:03.869
retained Daniel and Arturo Hernandez. They had never before tried
592
00:37:03.909 --> 00:37:07.309
a death penalty case, but had worked together on homicide cases.
593
00:37:07.969 --> 00:37:11.179
Their presentation wasn't helped much when at the arraignment in
594
00:37:11.239 --> 00:37:15.820
October 1985, Ramirez flashed a pentagram drawn on his palm
595
00:37:16.039 --> 00:37:20.449
and shouted, Hail Satan! This kind of behavior raised anxiety
596
00:37:20.489 --> 00:37:24.409
levels because, on another occasion, When the courtroom lights suddenly
597
00:37:24.469 --> 00:37:27.650
went out, the deputy marshals drew their pistols and told
598
00:37:27.849 --> 00:37:31.019
everyone to hit the floor. They then dragged Ramirez out
599
00:37:31.059 --> 00:37:34.719
of the courtroom. The Hernandez's began their long list of
600
00:37:34.820 --> 00:37:39.139
pre-trial motions by filing for a change of venue, insisting
601
00:37:39.179 --> 00:37:43.260
that the adverse publicity in Los Angeles County had infected
602
00:37:43.320 --> 00:37:47.760
the entire community, and hence the jury pool. Ramirez could
603
00:37:47.840 --> 00:37:51.110
not receive a fair trial, they claimed, because many middle-class
604
00:37:51.170 --> 00:37:54.030
people in the area had an image embedded in their
605
00:37:54.070 --> 00:37:58.250
consciousness of the night stalker breaking into their homes. In fact,
606
00:37:58.429 --> 00:38:02.349
a survey they had done indicated that 93% of 300
607
00:38:02.349 --> 00:38:06.150
people polled had heard about Ramirez and the majority believed
608
00:38:06.190 --> 00:38:10.840
that he was guilty. On January 10, 1987, the Los
609
00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:15.280
Angeles Times reported the decision in this 13-day hearing, a
610
00:38:15.340 --> 00:38:18.780
taste of things to come. Judge Dionne Morrow said that
611
00:38:18.860 --> 00:38:21.880
given the substantial pool of potential jurors in the county,
612
00:38:22.440 --> 00:38:25.699
he did not believe that argument was sound. This is
613
00:38:25.739 --> 00:38:29.320
the largest community, I think, he stated, of any court
614
00:38:29.380 --> 00:38:32.599
system in the country. As Ramirez was led in chains
615
00:38:32.639 --> 00:38:35.619
from the courtroom, he grinned at his growing coterie of
616
00:38:35.739 --> 00:38:40.809
female supporters. Some believed in his innocence. Others just thought
617
00:38:40.829 --> 00:38:44.710
he was cute. In another hearing, Judge Elva Soper granted
618
00:38:44.750 --> 00:38:48.530
a request for a gag order on both sides. By May,
619
00:38:48.670 --> 00:38:50.650
a trial date was set for the end of September.
620
00:38:51.230 --> 00:38:54.630
That proved to be highly optimistic. This case was going
621
00:38:54.670 --> 00:38:58.630
to spread into other states and even Mexico, seeking witnesses
622
00:38:58.829 --> 00:39:02.510
and evidence. The defense team would also introduce an exhausting
623
00:39:02.590 --> 00:39:07.679
round of delays, from appeals to out-of-town interviews to outright disappearances.
624
00:39:08.519 --> 00:39:12.539
Ramirez testified in pretrial proceedings, clad in a three-piece gray
625
00:39:12.599 --> 00:39:16.179
suit and red tie. He denied that he had spontaneously
626
00:39:16.260 --> 00:39:20.989
told Sergeant Ed Escueda upon his August 31st arrest I
627
00:39:21.030 --> 00:39:23.550
did it, you know, you guys got me, the stalker.
628
00:39:24.139 --> 00:39:26.900
His lawyer said that the officer had not recorded the
629
00:39:26.920 --> 00:39:31.980
statements and they wanted them stricken. Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan,
630
00:39:32.360 --> 00:39:35.920
who would sit for the trial, denied the motion. Sergeant
631
00:39:35.960 --> 00:39:38.840
George Thomas would later testify at the trial that he
632
00:39:38.880 --> 00:39:41.789
wrote down that Ramirez had said, of course I did it.
633
00:39:42.099 --> 00:39:46.039
So what? Shoot me. I deserve to die. Then he
634
00:39:46.079 --> 00:39:50.230
had hummed a tune called Night Prowler. Other than that appearance,
635
00:39:50.630 --> 00:39:54.070
Ramirez sat through most of his numerous hearings, slouching in
636
00:39:54.130 --> 00:39:57.269
his chair, drumming his fingers on the table, and bobbing
637
00:39:57.289 --> 00:40:00.150
his head as if listening to rock music. He seemed
638
00:40:00.269 --> 00:40:05.590
oblivious to the seriousness of the charges. When the Hernandez's
639
00:40:05.809 --> 00:40:09.489
insisted throughout the final months of 1987 that they needed
640
00:40:09.590 --> 00:40:12.969
more time to prepare, the trial date was moved to February.
641
00:40:13.570 --> 00:40:16.730
They considered buying more time by pursuing the Orange County
642
00:40:16.789 --> 00:40:21.170
trial first. In November, To avoid an extra trial, one
643
00:40:21.230 --> 00:40:25.090
murder and one felony count were dismissed. All the prosecution
644
00:40:25.130 --> 00:40:27.750
had for the murder was the delayed statement of a
645
00:40:27.809 --> 00:40:30.849
witness who had spotted Ramirez a block from the crime scene.
646
00:40:31.510 --> 00:40:34.550
Then Judge Tynan also said that he would not allow
647
00:40:34.590 --> 00:40:37.650
Ramirez to leave the county, which meant he could not
648
00:40:37.710 --> 00:40:42.400
be prosecuted in Orange County. The defense attorneys, seeking another ploy,
649
00:40:42.929 --> 00:40:45.650
prepared to ask for at least six separate trials to
650
00:40:45.710 --> 00:40:49.179
avoid having cases with little good evidence become stronger by
651
00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:54.159
association with those that had it. By January, it appeared
652
00:40:54.179 --> 00:40:59.480
that the trial for case number A7771272 would be postponed
653
00:40:59.599 --> 00:41:03.349
another six months because an appellate court required that the
654
00:41:03.389 --> 00:41:07.349
prosecution team supply defense attorneys with records of all crimes
655
00:41:07.750 --> 00:41:10.309
over a period of six months in Los Angeles County.
656
00:41:10.760 --> 00:41:14.360
of a similar nature to those of Ramirez. This was
657
00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:17.559
a move by the Hernandez's to link some of those
658
00:41:17.659 --> 00:41:21.380
that Ramirez was charged with to other cases and possibly
659
00:41:21.559 --> 00:41:25.780
other offenders. Prosecutor Phil Halpin called this an onerous burden
660
00:41:25.820 --> 00:41:29.139
for the cops and asked the court to reconsider. Both
661
00:41:29.239 --> 00:41:31.960
sides took it to the state Supreme Court, which would
662
00:41:32.039 --> 00:41:36.159
not hear it. San Francisco authorities had tentatively linked Ramirez
663
00:41:36.219 --> 00:41:40.869
to four homicides, a rape, and ten burglaries in March. Still,
664
00:41:41.329 --> 00:41:44.289
since they had no physical evidence in most of those crimes,
665
00:41:44.750 --> 00:41:47.989
they had narrowed their focus to one killing, Peter Pan,
666
00:41:48.510 --> 00:41:52.010
and one attempted murder, Pan's wife, and a burglary that
667
00:41:52.030 --> 00:41:55.820
had yielded evidence that led to discovering Ramirez's last name.
668
00:41:56.550 --> 00:41:59.139
They were awaiting the conclusion of the L.A. trial to
669
00:41:59.179 --> 00:42:02.500
decide on a date. In July, as the case neared
670
00:42:02.619 --> 00:42:06.199
three years since the arrest, the Times reported that Ramirez
671
00:42:06.500 --> 00:42:09.320
had decided against entering a plea of not guilty by
672
00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:13.250
reason of insanity. The judge ordered jury selection to begin.
673
00:42:13.889 --> 00:42:17.230
The paper quoted the judge as estimating that this alone
674
00:42:17.309 --> 00:42:21.889
could take six to eight months. The Hernandez's had sought
675
00:42:21.949 --> 00:42:25.610
to have Tynan disqualified based on prejudice against their client.
676
00:42:26.170 --> 00:42:29.349
They failed, but once again, they claimed they needed more
677
00:42:29.409 --> 00:42:33.820
time to prepare. Impatient with the defense motions, mostly to
678
00:42:33.860 --> 00:42:39.559
suppress evidence that numbered nearly 100, L.A. County Prosecutor Phil
679
00:42:39.599 --> 00:42:43.519
Halpin finalized his case and filed the charges, taking the
680
00:42:43.559 --> 00:42:47.739
defense by surprise. He claimed he had almost 1,000 potential
681
00:42:47.760 --> 00:42:51.800
witnesses and hundreds of thousands of pages of statements, reports,
682
00:42:52.179 --> 00:42:55.179
and photographs. Admitting that it was one of the most
683
00:42:55.260 --> 00:42:58.860
complicated criminal cases he had seen, he projected a two-year
684
00:42:58.920 --> 00:43:02.420
period for the trial. Thus far, the case had cost
685
00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:07.280
over $ 1 million and one witness had already died. The
686
00:43:07.320 --> 00:43:10.739
defense asked for yet another extension. but it was time
687
00:43:10.840 --> 00:43:17.320
to begin. On July 21, 1988, jury selection began. At
688
00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:19.960
the same time in Orange County, the jury was being
689
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:23.239
selected for the trial of Randy Craft, accused of killing
690
00:43:23.239 --> 00:43:26.849
16 young men. Judge Tynan decided that they would need
691
00:43:26.849 --> 00:43:30.130
12 jurors and 12 alternates, all of whom had to
692
00:43:30.190 --> 00:43:33.429
be impartial and also willing and able to serve for
693
00:43:33.489 --> 00:43:37.030
up to two years, a rather tall order even for
694
00:43:37.070 --> 00:43:40.670
that county. Carpenters were hired to enlarge the jury box.
695
00:43:41.449 --> 00:43:44.010
Tynan figured that to get what they needed, they would
696
00:43:44.050 --> 00:43:47.550
have to interview as many as 2,000 people. It turned
697
00:43:47.590 --> 00:43:51.530
out to be just short of 1,600. Alan Yockelson joined
698
00:43:51.570 --> 00:43:55.900
Halpin for the prosecution team. Throughout the voir dire, Halpin
699
00:43:56.039 --> 00:43:59.840
and Daniel Hernandez traded so many insults that the judge
700
00:43:59.920 --> 00:44:02.980
told them to take their macho posturing into a boxing ring.
701
00:44:03.639 --> 00:44:08.650
He called them both unprofessional. He also assigned a public defender,
702
00:44:09.010 --> 00:44:13.250
Ray Clark, to assist Daniel Hernandez, since Arturo seemed inclined
703
00:44:13.429 --> 00:44:16.340
not to be there at times. The team had not
704
00:44:16.449 --> 00:44:20.239
yet disclosed their strategy. They still had numerous appeals pending,
705
00:44:20.599 --> 00:44:24.239
particularly one asking to overturn the judge decision who had
706
00:44:24.300 --> 00:44:28.800
refused to remove Tynan from the case. Ramirez, often choosing
707
00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:32.239
all black garb, began to don sunglasses as part of
708
00:44:32.280 --> 00:44:37.289
his mysterious persona. Although he remained shaggy-haired throughout, Reinforcing his
709
00:44:37.349 --> 00:44:41.590
rebellious reputation, he got more involved in the proceedings. On
710
00:44:41.670 --> 00:44:45.070
August 3rd, the LA Times reported that jail employees had
711
00:44:45.239 --> 00:44:48.079
overheard a plan by Ramirez to shoot and kill the
712
00:44:48.119 --> 00:44:50.880
prosecutor with a gun that someone was going to slip
713
00:44:50.920 --> 00:44:54.619
him in the courtroom. A metal detector was installed inside
714
00:44:54.639 --> 00:44:58.389
the courtroom and even the lawyers were searched. Ramirez seemed
715
00:44:58.429 --> 00:45:03.070
surprised and no gun was ever found. Finally, after several months,
716
00:45:03.469 --> 00:45:07.280
a jury of 12, with alternates, was seated. Then one
717
00:45:07.340 --> 00:45:10.579
juror was dismissed for making racially biased statements about the
718
00:45:10.619 --> 00:45:15.280
death penalty. In January 1989, a state appeals court found
719
00:45:15.300 --> 00:45:19.860
Daniel Hernandez deficient in presenting another client in an earlier
720
00:45:19.900 --> 00:45:24.449
murder trial. Reportedly, he was not surprised by the decision.
721
00:45:24.969 --> 00:45:27.409
He also had a record of seeking delays for medical
722
00:45:27.449 --> 00:45:30.969
conditions caused by stress. No one knew why the family
723
00:45:31.010 --> 00:45:35.130
had hired such an inexperienced attorney. He continued to seek delays.
724
00:45:35.909 --> 00:45:38.590
By the end of the month, January 30th, the trial
725
00:45:38.650 --> 00:45:42.650
began with Halpin's two-hour opening statement about the 13 murders
726
00:45:42.849 --> 00:45:46.449
and 30 felony charges. He intended to introduce at least
727
00:45:46.449 --> 00:45:52.349
400 exhibits as evidence, including fingerprints, ballistics evidence, and shoe impressions,
728
00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:55.260
one of which had been on the face of one victim.
729
00:45:56.110 --> 00:45:59.219
On that same day, the Times reported that in jail
730
00:45:59.360 --> 00:46:03.809
in 1985, Ramirez had referred to himself as a super criminal,
731
00:46:04.349 --> 00:46:07.230
claiming he loved to kill and had murdered 20 people.
732
00:46:07.949 --> 00:46:10.869
I loved all that blood, a sheriff's deputy quoted him
733
00:46:10.889 --> 00:46:14.230
as saying. Halpin hoped to enter these statements as evidence.
734
00:46:15.730 --> 00:46:18.670
Hernandez declined to make an opening statement at this stage.
735
00:46:19.170 --> 00:46:24.400
His strategy remained veiled. Then the case really began. While
736
00:46:24.440 --> 00:46:27.679
some witnesses had a difficult time with memory recall four
737
00:46:27.719 --> 00:46:30.780
years after the crimes, Others were quite certain of their
738
00:46:30.820 --> 00:46:35.320
identification of Richard Ramirez. A few offered lengthy descriptions of
739
00:46:35.360 --> 00:46:38.539
their ordeal at the hand of Ramirez, sometimes while he
740
00:46:38.599 --> 00:46:42.519
leafed through a notebook of bloody crime scene photos. The defendant,
741
00:46:42.760 --> 00:46:47.449
when asked, refused to remove his sunglasses. Halpin used circumstantial
742
00:46:47.510 --> 00:46:51.210
evidence to link Ramirez with the avia shoes that left
743
00:46:51.309 --> 00:46:54.550
prints at crime scenes, with his appearance in the vicinity
744
00:46:54.590 --> 00:46:57.909
of the crimes. with his shifting M.O., and with possession
745
00:46:57.929 --> 00:47:01.230
of items removed from the victims or their homes. He
746
00:47:01.269 --> 00:47:06.309
also had fingerprints and signature evidence. On April 14th, after
747
00:47:06.429 --> 00:47:12.739
using 137 witnesses and 521 exhibits, the prosecution rested its case.
748
00:47:13.360 --> 00:47:16.340
But then, it had become clear that the defense strategy
749
00:47:16.719 --> 00:47:20.199
would be that the eight eyewitnesses, some of whom were survivors,
750
00:47:20.619 --> 00:47:25.690
had all mistakenly identified Ramirez. Some other guy had done
751
00:47:25.750 --> 00:47:29.510
it all. They were granted two weeks to prepare. One
752
00:47:29.550 --> 00:47:32.559
hurdle the defense team had to jump was the numerous pentagrams,
753
00:47:33.000 --> 00:47:36.320
left at crime scenes, in a car that bore Ramirez's fingerprint,
754
00:47:36.719 --> 00:47:39.500
on the thigh of a victim, on Ramirez, and in
755
00:47:39.539 --> 00:47:42.280
his cell. This was a means of linking the crimes,
756
00:47:42.719 --> 00:47:47.030
mostly since Ramirez was a self-proclaimed Satanist. He had allegedly
757
00:47:47.130 --> 00:47:50.210
forced one surviving victim to swear allegiance to Satan as
758
00:47:50.250 --> 00:47:53.989
he assaulted her and shot her husband. Besides fingerprint and
759
00:47:54.030 --> 00:47:57.929
impression evidence from Avia's shoes, allegedly worn by Ramirez, though
760
00:47:57.949 --> 00:48:00.849
they could not be found, ballistics evidence showed the use
761
00:48:00.889 --> 00:48:03.530
of four different guns, one of which was traced to
762
00:48:03.550 --> 00:48:05.960
a man who said he had gotten it from Ramirez.
763
00:48:06.800 --> 00:48:10.119
The defense began three weeks later, on May 9th, in
764
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:13.340
part because on May 2nd, one of the prosecution's witnesses
765
00:48:13.860 --> 00:48:17.889
was ordered to retestify. He had admitted to withholding information
766
00:48:17.909 --> 00:48:20.989
while under oath as he had described jewelry and consumer
767
00:48:21.090 --> 00:48:24.969
items linked to the victims and received from Ramirez. Halpin
768
00:48:24.989 --> 00:48:28.130
himself had uncovered the deception and said it was not
769
00:48:28.170 --> 00:48:32.150
damaging to the case. Hernandez withheld judgment but looked for
770
00:48:32.170 --> 00:48:35.469
an appeal opportunity. On May 4th, the Times ran a
771
00:48:35.489 --> 00:48:38.619
piece about Ramirez's state of mind, saying he was gloomy
772
00:48:38.719 --> 00:48:41.159
and distraught and that he did not want to put
773
00:48:41.239 --> 00:48:44.000
on a defense. The lawyers told the judge that this
774
00:48:44.039 --> 00:48:47.909
was a possibility. although they had advised him otherwise. Tynan
775
00:48:47.949 --> 00:48:51.809
granted a recess so they could talk further with their client. Ultimately,
776
00:48:52.170 --> 00:48:54.510
it was decided to go on with the trial, and
777
00:48:54.550 --> 00:48:58.699
they brought in 38 witnesses. The defense team essentially claimed
778
00:48:58.739 --> 00:49:03.139
that the prosecution's evidence was inconclusive or defective. They noted
779
00:49:03.179 --> 00:49:05.380
that there were many fingerprints of the crime scenes that
780
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:09.039
remained unidentified and that hair and blood samples were found
781
00:49:09.079 --> 00:49:12.440
that did not belong to the victims or Ramirez. In
782
00:49:12.480 --> 00:49:16.400
a surprise move, they had Ramirez's father, Julian Ramirez Tapia,
783
00:49:16.659 --> 00:49:18.599
take the stand to say that Richard had been in
784
00:49:18.760 --> 00:49:24.980
El Paso, Texas. for eight days starting around May 24, 1985.
785
00:49:24.980 --> 00:49:27.260
A rape victim had placed him in her home on
786
00:49:27.280 --> 00:49:30.719
Memorial Day, and another attack, which had ended in murder,
787
00:49:31.079 --> 00:49:34.869
had also occurred between May 29 and June 1. The
788
00:49:34.909 --> 00:49:37.849
defense attorneys also found testimony to the effect that police
789
00:49:37.909 --> 00:49:42.179
officers had covertly alerted witnesses to Ramirez's position in the
790
00:49:42.239 --> 00:49:47.099
lineup after his arrest. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, an expert in
791
00:49:47.179 --> 00:49:50.739
eyewitness testimony from the University of Washington, testified that the
792
00:49:50.800 --> 00:49:53.980
stress of assault might have affected the witness's ability to
793
00:49:54.019 --> 00:49:57.849
recall details accurately. She also pointed out that errors are
794
00:49:57.909 --> 00:50:01.150
more likely when the attacker and victims are of different races.
795
00:50:01.909 --> 00:50:05.619
Yet she conceded under cross-examination that those victims who had
796
00:50:05.699 --> 00:50:08.860
more than a fleeting exposure to Ramirez were likely to
797
00:50:08.900 --> 00:50:13.159
be more accurate. On May 25th, defense witness Sandra Hotchkiss
798
00:50:13.539 --> 00:50:17.000
claimed to have been Ramirez's accomplice in numerous daytime burglaries
799
00:50:17.320 --> 00:50:20.559
in 1985, some of which had occurred during his alleged
800
00:50:20.619 --> 00:50:23.989
murder spree. She said that none of these incidents was violent.
801
00:50:24.659 --> 00:50:27.969
She added that he was jumpy and amateurish. She broke
802
00:50:28.030 --> 00:50:31.809
off with him, was eventually arrested and convicted of other burglaries.
803
00:50:33.530 --> 00:50:37.630
Throughout this trial phase, several disturbances occurred, such as charts
804
00:50:37.690 --> 00:50:42.280
falling from easels, Daniel Hernandez sweating profusely, and evidence being
805
00:50:42.380 --> 00:50:46.599
erroneously represented. The newspapers pointed out that not once had
806
00:50:46.639 --> 00:50:50.760
the defense attorneys claimed their client was innocent. Hernandez commented
807
00:50:50.820 --> 00:50:53.219
in the papers that they merely wanted to prove that
808
00:50:53.239 --> 00:50:57.820
the prosecution's case was faulty. Rebuttal witnesses for the prosecution
809
00:50:57.920 --> 00:51:01.920
contradicted the testimony of Ramirez's father by showing that Ramirez was,
810
00:51:02.199 --> 00:51:05.039
in fact, in Los Angeles having dental work done at
811
00:51:05.079 --> 00:51:07.440
the time that his father said he was in El Paso.
812
00:51:08.139 --> 00:51:11.199
A comparison of Ramirez's teeth to the charts left no doubt,
813
00:51:11.480 --> 00:51:16.000
though Ramirez had used an alias. A newspaper reporter, David Hancock,
814
00:51:16.429 --> 00:51:19.789
also contradicted the alibi by indicating that he had interviewed
815
00:51:19.869 --> 00:51:24.389
Ramirez Tapia in August 1985. At that time, The man
816
00:51:24.429 --> 00:51:26.340
had claimed that he had not seen his son in
817
00:51:26.389 --> 00:51:30.650
at least two years. Daniel Hernandez was allowed to fly
818
00:51:30.690 --> 00:51:33.409
to Texas to seek out more witnesses who might have
819
00:51:33.469 --> 00:51:36.829
seen Ramirez. The jury was allowed to go on vacation
820
00:51:36.929 --> 00:51:41.050
until July 10th. Hernandez found two witnesses, but Halpin made
821
00:51:41.090 --> 00:51:43.809
the point that if he'd gone by plane, Ramirez could
822
00:51:43.889 --> 00:51:46.530
still have made it back in time to commit both attacks.
823
00:51:47.369 --> 00:51:49.969
One survivor had identified a piece of jewelry as hers
824
00:51:49.989 --> 00:51:52.969
and that had admittedly been found in the El Paso
825
00:51:53.010 --> 00:51:56.829
room of Ramirez's sister. Yet relatives of the woman murdered
826
00:51:56.869 --> 00:52:00.449
in May 1985 had photos of appliances from her home
827
00:52:00.809 --> 00:52:04.420
that had been in Ramirez's possession. In closing arguments that
828
00:52:04.460 --> 00:52:08.539
lasted from July 12th to 25th, each side emphasized the
829
00:52:08.659 --> 00:52:11.900
other side's case's weaknesses and the strengths of its own.
830
00:52:12.460 --> 00:52:15.619
Halpin pointed out that Hernandez had raised issues that he
831
00:52:15.679 --> 00:52:19.449
never substantiated, throwing them at the jury as mere diversions.
832
00:52:20.130 --> 00:52:23.889
When he was finished, Ramirez turned to the courtroom and smirked.
833
00:52:24.570 --> 00:52:27.519
The judge took two days to instruct the jury, letting
834
00:52:27.559 --> 00:52:30.500
them know that a handgun was missing from the evidence inventory,
835
00:52:30.820 --> 00:52:33.679
but they had a photograph of it. After nearly a year,
836
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:38.340
the jury finally started deliberations on July 26th with 8,000
837
00:52:38.340 --> 00:52:43.679
pages of trial transcripts and 655 exhibits to consider. Within
838
00:52:43.699 --> 00:52:48.019
a week, one juror who kept falling asleep was replaced. Then,
839
00:52:48.360 --> 00:52:52.550
on August 14th, Phyllis Singletary did not arrive. The judge
840
00:52:52.610 --> 00:52:55.000
summoned the jury and told them they could not continue
841
00:52:55.019 --> 00:52:57.480
without her and the court was recessed for the day.
842
00:52:58.159 --> 00:53:01.159
Yet the papers reported that Ms. Singletary had been shot
843
00:53:01.219 --> 00:53:03.820
to death in her apartment and this news passed through
844
00:53:03.860 --> 00:53:07.960
the jury and eight remaining alternatives, like wildfire. They could
845
00:53:08.039 --> 00:53:10.699
not help but wonder if Ramirez had managed this from
846
00:53:10.739 --> 00:53:13.610
his prison cell and if he might do something similar
847
00:53:13.739 --> 00:53:17.010
to another of them. He certainly had plenty of black-clad
848
00:53:17.050 --> 00:53:20.190
groupies who came to court each day to show their support.
849
00:53:20.769 --> 00:53:25.179
They were called the Charles Manson Cult of 1969. Judge
850
00:53:25.219 --> 00:53:27.760
Tynan called them into court the next day and told
851
00:53:27.800 --> 00:53:31.460
them that an abusive boyfriend had shot Ms. Singletary. He
852
00:53:31.500 --> 00:53:34.980
assured them the incident was unrelated to the case. An
853
00:53:35.079 --> 00:53:37.780
alternate was chosen to replace her, although the woman was
854
00:53:37.840 --> 00:53:40.739
so overcome with fear she could not walk to her place.
855
00:53:41.460 --> 00:53:45.550
Yet more news was forthcoming. Ms. Singletary's boyfriend used the
856
00:53:45.590 --> 00:53:49.000
same weapon with which he'd killed her, to commit suicide
857
00:53:49.079 --> 00:53:52.940
in a hotel. He left behind his written confession. They
858
00:53:52.980 --> 00:53:55.860
had been arguing over the Ramirez case, and he had
859
00:53:55.880 --> 00:54:00.639
become enraged by her disapproval of Ramirez's lawyers. The defense
860
00:54:00.679 --> 00:54:04.159
team tried hard to get a mistrial declared, which Halpern opposed.
861
00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:07.210
The case must not go down the drain, he insisted.
862
00:54:07.849 --> 00:54:11.150
Debates emerged in the newspapers over the issue, with one
863
00:54:11.170 --> 00:54:15.269
psychologist believing the shooting would unconsciously influence the jury against
864
00:54:15.349 --> 00:54:19.610
the defendant. However, the jury foreman assured the judge that
865
00:54:19.630 --> 00:54:23.110
they would continue. When Ramirez heard this in court, he
866
00:54:23.190 --> 00:54:24.969
shouted that it was all f * * * ed
867
00:54:25.050 --> 00:54:28.050
up and had to be restrained. He continued to act
868
00:54:28.130 --> 00:54:30.880
out during the rest of the deliberations, saying that the
869
00:54:30.929 --> 00:54:33.199
trial had not been fair and he was allowed to
870
00:54:33.260 --> 00:54:36.280
waive his right to be present in court. Whenever brief
871
00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:39.820
hearings were needed, the proceedings were piped into his holding cell.
872
00:54:41.539 --> 00:54:44.699
On September 20th, almost two months after they had begun...
873
00:54:45.119 --> 00:54:48.119
the jury announced that they had reached a unanimous decision.
874
00:54:48.840 --> 00:54:52.639
Ramirez elected not to attend the reading. Neither did his
875
00:54:52.679 --> 00:54:56.889
coterie of girlfriends. On each of the 43 counts, the
876
00:54:56.929 --> 00:55:01.250
jury had voted guilty and had affirmed 19 special circumstances
877
00:55:01.650 --> 00:55:05.969
that made him eligible for the death penalty. Upon leaving
878
00:55:06.010 --> 00:55:09.909
his cell, Ramirez flashed a devil sign, two finger for horns,
879
00:55:10.369 --> 00:55:14.940
at photographers and made a single comment, evil. The defense
880
00:55:14.960 --> 00:55:18.280
team asked Ramirez to assist with the penalty phase because,
881
00:55:18.650 --> 00:55:22.110
without mitigating factors, he surely would be condemned to death.
882
00:55:22.909 --> 00:55:26.449
Dying doesn't scare me, he responded. I'll be in hell.
883
00:55:27.070 --> 00:55:31.429
With Satan. He told his lawyers that he would not beg. So,
884
00:55:31.829 --> 00:55:35.179
to everyone's surprise, they offered no witnesses and did not
885
00:55:35.260 --> 00:55:38.280
call him to plead for his life. Halpin said later
886
00:55:38.320 --> 00:55:42.360
that this decision had caught him flat-footed. Clark argued before
887
00:55:42.400 --> 00:55:45.449
the jury that that something was wrong with Ramirez and
888
00:55:45.469 --> 00:55:49.840
they should be compassionate, sympathy even for the devil. Halpin
889
00:55:49.880 --> 00:55:52.460
reviewed his arguments from the trial and urged them to
890
00:55:52.519 --> 00:55:57.139
give him his just desserts. On October 3rd, 1989, after
891
00:55:57.219 --> 00:56:00.159
four days of deliberations, the jury said they'd voted for
892
00:56:00.219 --> 00:56:05.400
death for Richard Ramirez. The female members were crying. Ramirez,
893
00:56:05.619 --> 00:56:07.760
who was present for all of this, was led from
894
00:56:07.780 --> 00:56:13.329
the courtroom, smiling. Big deal, he said. Death always went
895
00:56:13.429 --> 00:56:16.610
with the territory. Later, as he was led in shackles
896
00:56:16.670 --> 00:56:20.050
back to the county jail, he added for reporters, I'll
897
00:56:20.130 --> 00:56:24.139
see you in Disneyland. On November 9th, he was officially
898
00:56:24.199 --> 00:56:30.420
sentenced to death 19 times. Ramirez chatted with his attorneys throughout. Afterward,
899
00:56:30.760 --> 00:56:34.179
he added to his dark image with his somewhat incomprehensible
900
00:56:34.260 --> 00:56:38.019
speech to the court. You do not understand me. I
901
00:56:38.059 --> 00:56:41.000
do not expect you to. You are not capable of it.
902
00:56:41.949 --> 00:56:46.309
I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil.
903
00:56:47.050 --> 00:56:50.869
Legions of the night, night breed, repeat not the errors
904
00:56:50.929 --> 00:56:55.010
of night prowler and show no mercy. I will be avenged.
905
00:56:55.630 --> 00:56:59.820
Lucifer dwells within us all. He denounced the court officials
906
00:56:59.900 --> 00:57:03.639
as liars, haters, and parasitic worms. He said that he'd
907
00:57:03.659 --> 00:57:07.219
been misunderstood, as he was led away to eventually join
908
00:57:07.400 --> 00:57:10.860
the 262 inmates already on death row in San Quentin.
909
00:57:11.199 --> 00:57:15.480
including freeway killer Randy Kraft, sentenced a month before, he asked,
910
00:57:15.960 --> 00:57:19.099
where are the women? He then flashed his two-fingered devil
911
00:57:19.119 --> 00:57:22.610
symbol at a busload of female prisoners who called out, killer!
912
00:57:23.289 --> 00:57:28.110
That made him smile. To understand Richard Ramirez and his
913
00:57:28.170 --> 00:57:30.889
passion for the devil, we need to examine more than
914
00:57:30.909 --> 00:57:33.539
just his life. We must also look at the times.
915
00:57:34.380 --> 00:57:38.679
Ramirez committed his murder spree in 1985 amid the satanic
916
00:57:38.739 --> 00:57:42.389
panics that swept the country throughout the decade. Anxiety over
917
00:57:42.469 --> 00:57:46.690
Satanists and evil conspiracies mounted on a cultural scale, and
918
00:57:46.750 --> 00:57:49.610
narratives told by people in therapy about ritual abuse by
919
00:57:49.670 --> 00:57:54.050
secret satanic rings showed many common elements and no evidence.
920
00:57:54.789 --> 00:57:58.250
Whole masses of people developed similar physical symptoms that were
921
00:57:58.309 --> 00:58:02.210
primarily emotional in origin. The idea of ritual abuse was
922
00:58:02.289 --> 00:58:07.460
heavily promoted by journalists, therapists, physicians, drug companies, and whoever
923
00:58:07.539 --> 00:58:11.280
else might find some stake in them. Serial killers, too,
924
00:58:11.460 --> 00:58:15.880
adopted satanic robes. During that decade, Robert Berdella killed six
925
00:58:15.960 --> 00:58:20.159
men in Missouri for satanic purposes. Antony Costa killed four
926
00:58:20.219 --> 00:58:24.409
women in Cape Cod in rituals. Thomas Creech admitted to
927
00:58:24.409 --> 00:58:29.059
47 satanic sacrifices. and Larry Eiler buried four of his
928
00:58:29.059 --> 00:58:32.639
23 victims under a barn marked with an inverted pentagram.
929
00:58:33.340 --> 00:58:37.079
Nurse Donald Harvey, suspected of the deaths of 47 patients,
930
00:58:37.519 --> 00:58:41.360
admitted to a fascination with black magic. Leonard Lake, who
931
00:58:41.380 --> 00:58:43.639
had teamed up with Charles Ng for a series of
932
00:58:43.699 --> 00:58:47.659
torture murders, was affiliated with a witch's coven. One killer
933
00:58:47.719 --> 00:58:51.409
targeted homeless men, ringing his victims with a circle of salt.
934
00:58:52.139 --> 00:58:54.710
A teenager who wanted to follow the devil murdered his
935
00:58:54.769 --> 00:58:58.989
parents in their beds. During the 1980s, a former associate
936
00:58:59.050 --> 00:59:02.920
of John Wayne Gacy, named Robin Getcht, inspired a group
937
00:59:02.960 --> 00:59:05.469
of three other men known as the Ripper Crew in
938
00:59:05.550 --> 00:59:09.150
killing an estimated 18 women. They would murder a victim,
939
00:59:09.710 --> 00:59:12.519
sever her left breast with a thin wire, clean it
940
00:59:12.559 --> 00:59:15.719
out for use for sexual gratification, and then cut it
941
00:59:15.880 --> 00:59:20.260
into pieces to consume. Ostensibly, they were worshipping Satan and
942
00:59:20.360 --> 00:59:24.969
eating the flesh was the form of demonic communion. The
943
00:59:25.030 --> 00:59:28.349
Night Stalker had the same devilish persuasion. He'd creep up
944
00:59:28.409 --> 00:59:31.860
in the night, dressed in black, and enter home surreptitiously.
945
00:59:32.579 --> 00:59:35.199
Sometimes he removed the eyes of his victim, as if
946
00:59:35.239 --> 00:59:39.199
for a ritual. He bludgeoned two elderly sisters and left
947
00:59:39.260 --> 00:59:41.960
satanic symbols on the thigh of the one who died
948
00:59:42.280 --> 00:59:45.269
in the form of a pentagram. He also drew pentagrams
949
00:59:45.389 --> 00:59:48.730
on the walls in lipstick. When he was arrested, Ramirez
950
00:59:48.789 --> 00:59:51.809
reportedly said he was a minion of Satan sent to
951
00:59:51.849 --> 00:59:55.019
commit the Dark One's dirty work. Was this admission some
952
00:59:55.059 --> 00:59:58.320
kind of preparation for an insanity defense or something he
953
00:59:58.380 --> 01:00:02.550
truly believed? If he believed it, did it inspire more savagery?
954
01:00:03.199 --> 01:00:06.010
Did it cause him to kill? Let's review some of
955
01:00:06.070 --> 01:00:09.030
the influential factors of his life that have been commonly
956
01:00:09.090 --> 01:00:13.110
linked to violent temperament development. He was born in El Paso,
957
01:00:13.150 --> 01:00:17.110
Texas in 1960, the youngest of five children. He was
958
01:00:17.150 --> 01:00:21.380
a quiet boy, according to neighbors, with hardworking parents. However,
959
01:00:21.719 --> 01:00:24.480
Richard's father had a temper and sometimes beat the kids.
960
01:00:25.119 --> 01:00:27.480
The abuse model in the form of a parent can
961
01:00:27.619 --> 01:00:30.280
often be a bad start for a child, especially a
962
01:00:30.340 --> 01:00:34.000
boy watching his father. Add to that possible abuse from
963
01:00:34.039 --> 01:00:36.880
a male teacher, and Richard had two role models who
964
01:00:36.940 --> 01:00:40.420
demonstrated how to use others for their own frustrating ends.
965
01:00:41.219 --> 01:00:43.760
Richard was afraid of his father, and he would leave
966
01:00:43.820 --> 01:00:46.909
home to hang out in a nearby cemetery, even spending
967
01:00:46.949 --> 01:00:50.619
the night. He found peace among the dead. which may
968
01:00:50.699 --> 01:00:53.659
have been where he first developed an attraction to the macabre.
969
01:00:54.460 --> 01:00:57.539
A means for getting over one's fears is to identify
970
01:00:57.739 --> 01:01:00.599
with what's frightening you. One way to do this is
971
01:01:00.639 --> 01:01:04.469
to become a frightening person yourself. More than one criminal
972
01:01:04.510 --> 01:01:07.230
has become the very thing that scared him, turning from
973
01:01:07.309 --> 01:01:11.650
victim into a victimizer. Yet Ramirez would take this transformation
974
01:01:11.869 --> 01:01:15.449
another step. It would become more than just frightening people.
975
01:01:16.110 --> 01:01:19.460
He would want to mutilate them, degrade them, and radiate
976
01:01:19.500 --> 01:01:24.420
their fear in larger ripples at others. Ramirez also suffered
977
01:01:24.440 --> 01:01:28.230
from epileptic seizures, possibly viewed as a weakness in that
978
01:01:28.369 --> 01:01:31.590
South Texas culture, since it forced him to give up football.
979
01:01:32.289 --> 01:01:35.010
And he became something of a loner in school. He
980
01:01:35.030 --> 01:01:37.829
was thin and girlish in appearance, so he may have
981
01:01:37.869 --> 01:01:42.019
been ridiculed. Yet he had ambitions to become famous. He
982
01:01:42.079 --> 01:01:45.280
wanted people to know him. He wanted to make a difference.
983
01:01:46.059 --> 01:01:48.320
He looked up to an older cousin named Mike, who
984
01:01:48.360 --> 01:01:51.690
may have become a father substitute. Mike loved to prove
985
01:01:51.730 --> 01:01:55.190
how tough he was, especially by fighting. As Richard hung
986
01:01:55.250 --> 01:01:58.610
out with him day after day, absorbing Mike's life philosophies,
987
01:01:59.010 --> 01:02:02.130
he learned a new outlook. Mike had survived the rigors
988
01:02:02.170 --> 01:02:05.590
of Vietnam, and when he returned, even more hardened and
989
01:02:05.650 --> 01:02:09.619
covered in tattoos, he became larger than life in Richard's eyes.
990
01:02:10.519 --> 01:02:13.280
He'd come through an ordeal, and he had secrets from
991
01:02:13.320 --> 01:02:17.329
an exotic place. That was pretty exciting, but even better
992
01:02:17.389 --> 01:02:19.909
were the photographs that Mike liked to show Richard of
993
01:02:19.949 --> 01:02:23.670
the butchered dead, including women. He said that killing made
994
01:02:23.710 --> 01:02:26.949
him feel like a god, and there was nothing more powerful.
995
01:02:27.530 --> 01:02:29.989
Mike bragged that he had raped and murdered several women,
996
01:02:30.329 --> 01:02:32.929
and he had the photos to prove it. While Richard
997
01:02:32.969 --> 01:02:35.730
may have been shocked initially, he eventually got used to
998
01:02:35.789 --> 01:02:39.239
such sights, mostly since it was essential to show Mike
999
01:02:39.360 --> 01:02:42.199
that he could handle it. Mike might have been testing
1000
01:02:42.239 --> 01:02:46.239
young Richard, not yet even an adolescent, but Richard was
1001
01:02:46.320 --> 01:02:49.550
up to the test. He took it in and wanted more.
1002
01:02:51.190 --> 01:02:53.949
The key insight here is that Richard's exposure to Mike's
1003
01:02:54.030 --> 01:02:57.110
atrocities occurred at a time in his life when he
1004
01:02:57.150 --> 01:03:00.230
was also becoming a young man, and often when things
1005
01:03:00.269 --> 01:03:04.670
get associated with physical excitement and intrigue during early sexual development,
1006
01:03:05.289 --> 01:03:09.139
they also become eroticized. Thus, they become part of the
1007
01:03:09.199 --> 01:03:13.010
mental landscape as well. Sexual fantasies can develop from the
1008
01:03:13.030 --> 01:03:17.849
associated images, and those fantasies become repetitive and more detailed
1009
01:03:17.909 --> 01:03:21.369
throughout one's life and may lay the groundwork for later acts.
1010
01:03:22.150 --> 01:03:25.550
Richard supposedly had viewed Polaroids of Mike in sexual activity
1011
01:03:25.929 --> 01:03:28.469
in which the woman was a helpless victim and of
1012
01:03:28.550 --> 01:03:31.989
Mike murdering these same women. He saw how his idol
1013
01:03:32.050 --> 01:03:35.599
could do these things without a qualm, undoubtedly got excited
1014
01:03:35.639 --> 01:03:38.949
by the naked woman in sexual positions, and probably learned
1015
01:03:38.969 --> 01:03:42.280
that women could be easily used as objects for degradation.
1016
01:03:44.039 --> 01:03:47.079
It was all part of being a real man, yet
1017
01:03:47.119 --> 01:03:50.420
it was also forbidden, which gave Mike's macho realm an
1018
01:03:50.699 --> 01:03:54.380
added allure. In addition to that, Mike also taught Richard
1019
01:03:54.460 --> 01:03:57.360
the art of hunting as a predator. They would go
1020
01:03:57.420 --> 01:04:00.090
out into the desert at night and observe and sneak
1021
01:04:00.179 --> 01:04:03.389
up on animals. Mike then would show Richard how to
1022
01:04:03.469 --> 01:04:05.989
kill an animal with a knife or gun, and it's
1023
01:04:06.050 --> 01:04:09.530
likely they indulged in some bloody aspects of this sport.
1024
01:04:10.230 --> 01:04:13.489
As Richard developed, Mike became his role model, and whatever
1025
01:04:13.550 --> 01:04:17.269
Mike did without fear, Richard wanted to do. That set
1026
01:04:17.289 --> 01:04:20.190
him up for one more incident that would prove everything
1027
01:04:20.210 --> 01:04:24.050
that Mike had demonstrated thus far. One day, Mike got
1028
01:04:24.070 --> 01:04:26.199
into a fight with his wife, who wanted him to
1029
01:04:26.239 --> 01:04:29.699
get a job, and decided to end her harassment. He
1030
01:04:29.739 --> 01:04:33.539
drew a revolver and shot her. Then he told Richard
1031
01:04:33.579 --> 01:04:37.050
to leave. For this crime, Mike went to a mental institution,
1032
01:04:37.530 --> 01:04:41.329
judged to have been temporarily insane. Yet right after the incident,
1033
01:04:41.690 --> 01:04:44.369
Richard went into the home with his father and saw
1034
01:04:44.530 --> 01:04:47.449
and smelled the blood. He felt a connection with the dead,
1035
01:04:47.809 --> 01:04:50.820
he later confessed to author Philip Carlo in The Night Stalker,
1036
01:04:51.179 --> 01:04:56.400
which bordered on the mystical. Some psychologists pinpoint this killing
1037
01:04:56.599 --> 01:04:59.880
as the turning point for him. Still, it's more likely
1038
01:04:59.920 --> 01:05:03.320
that he had already become accustomed to death, especially with women,
1039
01:05:03.789 --> 01:05:06.550
via the photographs Mike had shown him and by killing
1040
01:05:06.670 --> 01:05:10.530
animals up close. This incident was probably not as traumatic
1041
01:05:10.590 --> 01:05:12.929
for him as it might have been, given what he'd
1042
01:05:13.050 --> 01:05:18.130
already been exposed to. The numbness had already developed in him. Otherwise,
1043
01:05:18.469 --> 01:05:20.610
we might expect that he'd have run from the apartment
1044
01:05:20.730 --> 01:05:23.210
and gone to the police or gone into a depression
1045
01:05:23.269 --> 01:05:26.409
and avoided his cousin after that. He told no one
1046
01:05:26.610 --> 01:05:29.269
that he had witnessed the crime. What may have been
1047
01:05:29.289 --> 01:05:32.210
just as instrumental in his development is that he did
1048
01:05:32.269 --> 01:05:35.150
attend church. so that to be able to worship and
1049
01:05:35.289 --> 01:05:39.369
also accept his cousin's violent attitudes indicated that he'd already
1050
01:05:39.429 --> 01:05:44.340
begun to compartmentalize, to act and think differently in different contexts.
1051
01:05:45.050 --> 01:05:47.880
That's the most dangerous kind of person, because it becomes
1052
01:05:47.960 --> 01:05:51.079
difficult for others to recognize the violent side and make
1053
01:05:51.119 --> 01:05:53.960
it difficult for them to stop their own violent acts.
1054
01:05:55.780 --> 01:05:59.699
He may not even view them as bad. Eventually, Richard
1055
01:05:59.739 --> 01:06:02.300
discovered the Church of Satan, and that seemed to draw
1056
01:06:02.500 --> 01:06:05.239
all the threads of his temperament together in the right way.
1057
01:06:05.880 --> 01:06:09.440
The themes of dominance, control, and power called to him,
1058
01:06:09.980 --> 01:06:12.860
as did the idea of something sacred, even if it
1059
01:06:12.900 --> 01:06:15.739
was evil. All of this might have made him able
1060
01:06:15.820 --> 01:06:19.440
to erase his feelings of weakness. Then, when he was 18,
1061
01:06:19.440 --> 01:06:22.929
he moved to California. He had nothing much to do there,
1062
01:06:23.090 --> 01:06:26.489
so he stole cars, listened to music, and looked for opportunities,
1063
01:06:26.989 --> 01:06:30.550
whatever they might be. He would steal without compunction and
1064
01:06:30.610 --> 01:06:34.750
buy drugs. he still sought something that might make him significant.
1065
01:06:35.550 --> 01:06:38.789
Richard Ramirez had perceived in the culture around him, he
1066
01:06:38.809 --> 01:06:41.920
was not far from where teachers had been arrested in
1067
01:06:41.920 --> 01:06:44.599
1983 at the McMartin Preschool and accused as a ring
1068
01:06:44.619 --> 01:06:48.219
of Satanists corrupting children, that people were afraid of Satan,
1069
01:06:48.619 --> 01:06:51.559
and to him, that probably meant that aligning himself with
1070
01:06:51.579 --> 01:06:55.630
the Prince of Darkness would uniquely empower him. People would
1071
01:06:55.789 --> 01:07:01.159
actually fear him. So he cultivated Satanism's trappings that were
1072
01:07:01.199 --> 01:07:06.550
popular during the 1970s and 80s. Pentagrams, black clothing, demonic eyes,
1073
01:07:06.889 --> 01:07:10.170
stealthy ways, and a penchant for the night. He took
1074
01:07:10.210 --> 01:07:13.210
his cue from the song Night Prowler, noting how the
1075
01:07:13.250 --> 01:07:16.800
person who made others afraid was the person in control.
1076
01:07:17.559 --> 01:07:20.420
So he went on his murder spree, was caught, and
1077
01:07:20.460 --> 01:07:23.000
went through a trial. He was certainly making a name
1078
01:07:23.039 --> 01:07:26.139
for himself, but it wasn't enough just to be another
1079
01:07:26.199 --> 01:07:29.469
serial killer. There were plenty of those by the 1980s,
1080
01:07:29.989 --> 01:07:32.349
even a trial in Orange County at the same time.
1081
01:07:32.909 --> 01:07:35.090
He perceived that he had set himself apart with his
1082
01:07:35.130 --> 01:07:38.500
satanic incarnation, and he played that up for the press.
1083
01:07:40.280 --> 01:07:43.619
Ramirez flashed a pentagram at his preliminary hearing that he'd
1084
01:07:43.659 --> 01:07:46.579
had tattooed onto the palm of his hand. When he
1085
01:07:46.619 --> 01:07:49.300
was convicted, his lawyers warned him that he could get
1086
01:07:49.340 --> 01:07:52.969
the death sentence. I'll be in hell then, he said,
1087
01:07:53.510 --> 01:07:57.210
with Satan. He saw the newspaper articles talking about him
1088
01:07:57.329 --> 01:08:00.690
as the devil and understood that he was a celebrity now.
1089
01:08:01.389 --> 01:08:04.429
The more he flashed the pentagram or talked about serving Satan,
1090
01:08:04.780 --> 01:08:07.920
the more he was quoted in the papers. He adopted
1091
01:08:07.980 --> 01:08:11.980
sunglasses to enhance his mystique. He embraced the idea that
1092
01:08:12.019 --> 01:08:15.440
he was a monster. Even during the trial, when one
1093
01:08:15.480 --> 01:08:19.000
juror was murdered, the incident made other jurors wonder if
1094
01:08:19.060 --> 01:08:23.079
Ramirez had called forth demons to attack that person. They
1095
01:08:23.119 --> 01:08:25.920
were fearful that he might pick them off. He'd often
1096
01:08:25.979 --> 01:08:29.789
tried to intimidate them individually with his stares. He was
1097
01:08:29.829 --> 01:08:32.550
sentenced to death and sent to death row in San Quentin.
1098
01:08:33.010 --> 01:08:35.789
When talking to police officers, he was quite curious as
1099
01:08:35.829 --> 01:08:38.210
to whether there would now be books about him, as
1100
01:08:38.229 --> 01:08:41.239
there were about Ted Bundy and Jack the Ripper. He
1101
01:08:41.359 --> 01:08:45.560
loved the idea that someone had made a movie. During
1102
01:08:45.579 --> 01:08:48.859
the 1990s, Jason Moss wrote to Ramirez as part of
1103
01:08:48.899 --> 01:08:52.369
his project to write to serial killers. and Ramirez reportedly
1104
01:08:52.449 --> 01:08:56.500
wanted him to become a Satanist. Since Ramirez's beliefs seem
1105
01:08:56.579 --> 01:09:00.180
fundamental to his desire to be notorious and unique, it's
1106
01:09:00.239 --> 01:09:03.359
difficult to know to what degree he was sincerely devoted
1107
01:09:03.420 --> 01:09:06.670
to Satan. Yet it's likely that his desire to kill
1108
01:09:07.069 --> 01:09:09.590
and how he committed his crimes had more to do
1109
01:09:09.630 --> 01:09:13.510
with his cousin Mike's psychological influence, coupled with his notion
1110
01:09:13.810 --> 01:09:15.869
that killing makes one a god.