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Families of Some “Night Stalker” Victims Had Warned Them to Lock Their Doors · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep Dive. Today. We're taking on a
0:02
really difficult subject, looking back at a time when well,
0:06
the idea that your home was your safe space was
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just completely shattered. We're talking about the summer of nineteen
0:12
eighty five southern California and the terror caused by Richard Ramirez,
0:17
the man everyone came to know as the night Stalker.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was more than just a spike in crime.
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It became this deep psychological wound for the whole region.
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It went on for about fourteen months, starting in eighty
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four into eighty four, fourteen months, and in that time
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Ramirez killed thirteen people, attacked dozens more. But when you
0:35
dig into it beyond the headlines, what's really striking is
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how fast things changed. Homes went from places of comfort
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to well, the sources called the fortresses under siege almost overnight.
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Speaker 1: That feeling, that shift from safety to just constant fear.
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That's really the backdrop here. His violence was. It was random,
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incredibly brutal, and totally unpredictable, utterly. But our goal today
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it isn't just to recount the horses. We want to
1:00
focus on something else, something tragically common across so many
1:03
of these cases. It's about human behavior really.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, this deep dive that really zeros in on the
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the tragic cost of well complacency, specifically looking at instances
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where warnings from family, from loved ones about basic home
1:17
security they just.
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Speaker 1: Weren't heeded and the tragic irony there.
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Speaker 2: It's staggering really when you look at the police reports,
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the testimony from survivors. The analysis shows that in about
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half of Ramires's attacks, he didn't need force, No broken locks,
1:32
no smashed windows.
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Speaker 1: So how did he get in.
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Speaker 2: Simple things unlocked doors, windows, left open, screens that were loose.
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He basically preyed on what one reporter back then called
1:41
the complacency of everyday life.
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Speaker 1: Wow, it's hard to wrap your head around that level
1:45
of vulnerability right next to such calculated evil. It is,
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and for us, one person's story just tragically highlights this conflict,
1:52
you know, the clash between independence and this rising fear.
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That's sixty year old Joyce Lucille Nelson from Monterey Park.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, jas Nelson. By all account she was this incredibly
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resilient woman, very independent, a seamstress, worked in cafeterias. She
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really embodied that sort of tough self reliant spirit of
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her generation.
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Speaker 1: Raised two sons, Dale and Dawn, through tough times.
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Speaker 2: Exactly hardship loss she'd seen it, and her home it
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reflected that spirit. It was described as a hub of laughter.
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She loved gardening barefoot, and apparently she often kept the
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screen door just slightly open, you know, to let the
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breeze in that classic southern California thing.
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Speaker 1: The quintessential welcoming home.
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Speaker 2: Right. But that welcoming nature became a point of conflict.
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Speaker 1: Because her son, Dawn, he was feeling the fear that
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was just gripping the whole city that summer. He begged her, didn't.
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He begged her to lock up.
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Speaker 2: He did desperately, and her response, it's jelling, really, It
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basically became her epitaph.
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Speaker 1: What does she say?
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Speaker 2: She told him, I wouldn't want to be a prisoner
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in my own home. She chose, you know, normalcy her
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way of life, over barricading herself in comfort, over constant vigil.
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Speaker 1: And that choice made under unimaginable pressure. That's what we
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need to unpack today. We'll be using survivor accounts, family memories,
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and even those recently surfaced prison tapes.
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Speaker 2: Right, the ones from the upcoming twenty twenty five Peacock
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docuseries where you hear Ramirez himself exactly.
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Speaker 1: We want to understand how ordinary people got caught up
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in this became sort of footnotes to his evil, and
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how the grief that followed just completely changed how families
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thought about security, about justice, about everything. It's not just
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the what, it's the why and the how it was
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even possible.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so we've got this central conflict, the very human
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desire for freedom versus the need for safety. But to
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really get why people were maybe hesitant to fortify their homes,
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we need to understand the monster they were facing. Let's
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talk about Richard Ramirez's.
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Speaker 1: Background, right. Ricardo Leeba Munoz Ramirez born in El Paso, Texas,
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nineteen sixty. He was the youngest of five kids, and
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while his early life was marked by instability, instability how
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sourses talk about a violent home. His father, actually a
4:01
former police officer, was apparently very volatile. There is poverty,
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his mother had suffered miscarriages, just a lot of stress
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and trauma in the household.
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Speaker 2: But there's one event that really stands out in all
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the accounts. Isn't there something formative?
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Speaker 1: Absolutely everyone points to this one critical incident involving his cousin,
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Miguel Ramirez known as Mike. Mike Ramirez, the Vietnam Green Beret.
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Speaker 2: That's him, a figure who embodied, you know, extreme state
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sanctioned violence from the war, but then brought that violence
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right into the family setting.
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Speaker 1: And Richard witnessed something horrific.
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Speaker 2: He did at just twelve years old. He reportedly watched,
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quote in mesmerized horror, as Mike just shot and killed
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his own wife in a sudden outburst right there in
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front of him.
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Speaker 1: My god, twelve years old.
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Speaker 2: Imagine seeing that that kind of brutal, fatal violence erupting
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in a domestic space. It clearly left a permanent scar,
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and it gets worse.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Ramirez himself revealed later in those prison takes that Mike
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didn't just commit violence. He showed Richard pictures from Vietnam
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lies of the war. He called them graphic images of
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death chaos, essentially grooming him, desensitizing him to it all,
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replacing any potential empathy with well fascination.
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Speaker 1: So it wasn't just a difficult childhood, It was active
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exposure to extreme violence normalized by someone He likely looked up.
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Speaker 2: To precisely, and from there the trajectory is sadly almost predictable.
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Petty crime as a teenager, shoplifting, breaking into houses, sniffing glue.
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Speaker 1: And then he moves to California.
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Speaker 2: Around nineteen eighty one, and initially he wasn't the night stalker.
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He was becoming a very effective cat burglar, really skilled
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at climbing, getting onto roofs, jimmying locks, mostly in nicer
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neighborhoods that were maybe, you know, a bit too relaxed
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about security.
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Speaker 1: But then came the leap from theft to murder. June
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twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four, Jenny Vincow, seventy nine years
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old in glassal Park.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the first confirmed kill and the brutality
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was immediate. He slashed her throat so severely the reports
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say her head was almost detached. Just horrorfory.
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Speaker 1: And this is where we see that theme emerge again,
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the guilt of the family.
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Speaker 2: Right, it was Vincow's son Peter who found her, and
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the detail that haunted him, according to the sources, wasn't
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just the horror of the scene. It was that he
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had left the front door un locked. That night. Oh no,
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he apparently wrestled with that for years, that if only
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I'd checked that terrible weight of responsibility. It started right
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there with the very first murder.
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Speaker 1: After Vincow, Ramirez seems to disappear for a bit, about
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eight months.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the police think he might have done a short
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stint in jail for car theft. But when he came
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back around March nineteen eighty five, something had clearly shifted.
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His whole approach changed. How So, the earlier attacks like
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Vincow were somewhat stealthy, knife focused, but now it became theatrical, savage,
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almost like he was performing the kind of chaos he'd
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seen as a kid. He wasn't just killing, he was terrorizing.
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He wanted to impose himself on his victims, and.
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Speaker 1: The randomness escalated too. March seventeenth, nineteen eighty five, Dale
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Okazaki and Silely and yw In Rosemead shot with a
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point two to five caliber pistol. Totally different weapon, different method.
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Speaker 2: Exactly an execution style killing, and again you hear echoes
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of that same regret. Okazaki's fiance mentioned later how he'd
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been worried had nagged her about locking up because of
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news reports about break INDs, but nobody expected this level
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of violence. Nobody. The shift from burglary to murder was
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so sudden. And you know, the spring weather, it was
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getting warm, people were leaving windows open. It just made
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it easier to let your guard down. The environment itself
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was almost conspiring against safety.
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Speaker 1: Then the terror seemed to focus targeting families like the
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Dove's sisters in Arcadia March twenty seven.
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Speaker 2: Karen and Patricia Dovey in that case shows how flimsy
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security could be. They just put in new dead bolts,
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heavy duty ones. Oh it didn't matter, didn't matter. He
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got in through a loose screen on a side window.
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It just goes to show, you know, the strongest lock
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in the world doesn't help if there's one weak spot.
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Vigilance has to be total. And that's wow, that's hard
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for people.
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Speaker 1: And then April eighth, the Azara case and Diamond Bar.
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That one was particularly.
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Speaker 2: Gross, unimaginably brutal. Vincent Czzara, he was a retired cop.
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Ramirez eviscerated him his wife, Maxine. She fought back hard, fiercely,
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but she was shot and then mutilated with a kitchen.
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Speaker 1: Knife and the warning had been there.
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Speaker 2: Their son had urged them just days before to chain
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the doors.
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Speaker 1: Pleaded with them, what the father of the ex cop.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, According to court testimony, his response was sort of
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classic old school denial. Laughed it off, said something like,
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we've got guns. He thought a weapon was enough retection. Again,
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someone just walking in unexpectedly, that resistance to simple preventative measures,
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it was incredibly strong. People genuinely believed they could handle
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it until it was too late.
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Speaker 1: As the attacks mounted, the media frenzy just exploded, didn't they. Oh?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely. Initially the La Times called him the Valley Intruder,
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but the name that stuck, the one that really captured
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the terror, was coined by the La Herald Examiner in
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July eighty five, The night Stalker.
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Speaker 1: That name changed everything.
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Speaker 2: It did. It turned him from just a criminal into
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something almost mythical, a boogeyman, and the public reaction was immediate.
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Hardware stores sales of locks, bolts, guns, sources say they
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jumped three hundred percent. People were literally barricading themselves in.
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Vigilante groups started forming all over.
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Speaker 1: And Ramirez leaned into it. He added that whole Satanism.
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Speaker 2: Element deliberately carving pentagrams on victims or walls, shouting hail
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Satan during assaults. It was a calculated move to amplify
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the fear, to make it feel supernatural, unstoppable, taking.
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Speaker 1: It beyond just crime into something existential.
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Speaker 2: Exactly. It wasn't just about protecting your stuff anymore. It
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felt like you were protecting your soul. It made people
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feel like maybe normal precautions weren't enough against this embodiment
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of evil. The psychological warfare was almost as damaging as
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the physical attacks.
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Speaker 1: So you have this perfect storm, intense fear, a brutal
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heat wave forcing windows open, and this underlying human tendency
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towards routine, towards complacency, and it all just tragically converges
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in the murder of Joyce Nelson.
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Speaker 2: It really does. Her story encapsulates so much of this.
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Remember she was born in nineteen twenty five, came out
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of the dest Bowl era. Her whole worldview was shaped
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by resilience, yes, but also by that kind of Midwestern
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open door community spirit.
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Speaker 1: And her home reflected that three P forty e. R
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Light Street in Monterey Park.
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Speaker 2: That was the place friends and family described it as warm, welcoming.
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She loved her garden, walked around barefoot, and yeah, often
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left that screen door just slightly open for a breeze.
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It was just how she lived.
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Speaker 1: But that summer nineteen eighty five, that openness became a
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critical vulnerability.
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Speaker 2: Especially with the heat wave. We're talking temperatures consistently over
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one hundred degrees. If you didn't have central air conditioning,
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which many didn't back then, keeping windows and doors shut
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just wasn't feasible.
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Speaker 1: You needed the air, so it became a terrible choice
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air or security.
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Speaker 2: Pretty much, and this wasn't lost on her family. Her
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son Dawn was acutely aware of the rising danger, especially
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after William and Lillian Douy were murdered.
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Speaker 1: Nearby right the Doy case in Monterey Park, May fourteenth,
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shotgun slaying very close to Joyce's home exactly.
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Speaker 2: It was a direct local warning sign, and the doy
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themselves had reportedly brushed off pleas from their daughter to
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install security bars. William joy supposedly grumbled that infamous line,
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it's our home, not a jail.
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Speaker 1: It's the same theme recurring again and again, this resistance
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to feeling imprisoned by fear.
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Speaker 2: It is, and after the Doy murders. Don Nelson got
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really proactive. The sources say he literally drove over to
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his mom's house with a screwdriver trying to tighten her
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window latches himself, trying to force some security into her routine.
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Speaker 1: But she resisted she did.
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Speaker 2: His final desperate plea came on July fourth, Independence Day. Ironically,
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he begged her mom, promise me, you'll lock.
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Speaker 1: Up, and that's when she said it.
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Speaker 2: That's when she said, Donnie, I've lived sixty years without
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bars on my soul. It wasn't just being stubborn. It
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was a fundamental statement about who she was and how
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she intended to live. Tragically, it left her completely exposed,
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and just.
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Speaker 1: Three days later, July seventh, thro round two in the morning,
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Ramirez found that opening.
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Speaker 2: You didn't need to break anything whever scale defense in
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the backyard, saw the loose screen in the living room window,
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probably left that way for ventilation, and as one source
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put it, he just slipped inside.
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Speaker 1: Like smoke, and Joyce was asleep on the couch.
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Speaker 2: Probably the coolest place in the house, which put her
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right in his path. The attack was incredibly fast, brutal,
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and deeply personal. Ramirez reportedly high on cocaine just stomped
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on her face repeatedly.
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Speaker 1: The reports say it crushed her skull and jaw yes.
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Speaker 2: And the evidence he left it's one of the most
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chilling details of the entire case. The clear imprint of
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his shoe, a size eleven and a half avious sneaker,
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right there on her face.
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Speaker 1: That footprint became crucial forensic evidence.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely critical, linked him directly. He barely stole anything, just
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twenty dollars a cheap watch, and then he was gone.
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But the horror didn't stop there.
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Speaker 1: What do you mean?
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Speaker 2: That same night, not even a mile away from Joe House,
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he attacked another woman, sixty three year old Sophie Dickman Racher,
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tied her up, forced her to swear to Satan, same night,
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the same night. It just shows the terrifying pace and
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proximity of his attacks, two separate entries, likely through unlocked
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access points, within hours and miles of each other. The
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whole area felt like a hunting grass.
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Speaker 1: And the discovery of Joyce's body it fell to her
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son Don.
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Speaker 2: At dawn the next day. A neighbor called him because
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the milk delivery was still sitting on the porch starting
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to sour in the heat. Don said later he knew
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something was wrong even before he opened the door. He said,
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the air smelled wrong.
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Speaker 1: Oh that's gut wrenching.
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Speaker 2: Finding her like that and knowing he had warned her.
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The guilt must have been just overwhelming, devastating.
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Speaker 1: He'd been a supporter of the death penalty before this.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, reportedly, quite staunchly. But this immense personal tragedy coupled
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with that specific guilt over the unheated warning, it forced
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him to grapple with his faith, with justice, with everything.
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He said. They buried her with her fighter's spirit, but
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that guilt, that what if it became a shadow over
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his life. It shows that Ramirez didn't just exploit physical openings,
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but the emotional dynamics within families too.
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Speaker 1: Joyce Nelson's story is just heartbreaking. But looking at the
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wider pattern, as you said, this wasn't an anomaly exploiting
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these simple oversights. This human tendency to relax, that was
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his signature, wasn't it.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely? The statistics spared out fifteen attacks in nineteen eighty
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five alone, and about half of them investigators found no
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signs of forced entry. Zero. It was all down to
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human factors, habit, convenience, maybe just forgetting in the heat
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or actively choosing comfort over security.
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Speaker 1: It underlines that chilling reality random threats require constant vigilance,
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which is just It's exhausting. It goes against our nature.
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Speaker 2: It really does you want to feel relaxed in your
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own home.
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Speaker 1: Let's look at some other cases that really drive this home.
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The Lang sisters in Monrovia, May twenty ninth, Mabel Bell
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eighty three, m Florence Lang eighty one, who was an invalid.
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Speaker 2: They're incredibly brutal attack. They were bludgeoned with a hammer.
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Pentagrams are found again, Nettie Florence laying she clung tolive
15:07
for two days before passing.
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Speaker 1: And the warning sign there so poignant.
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Speaker 2: Their niece, Barbara Inman, lived up in Oregon. She was
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so worried about them, especially with the news reports that
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she actually mailed them new heavy duty locks weeks before
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the attack. Mailed them locks yes, and sent letters begging
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them bolt everything, please lock up. But just like with choice,
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the summer heat won. The sources indicate their windows were
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left wide open for ventilation. Barbara Imman's letters apparently referenced
15:34
in those prison tapes were described as just filled with
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this awful sense of foresight and later crushing regrets.
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Speaker 1: She saw it coming, she feared it.
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Speaker 2: She could picture them maybe sitting by those open windows,
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trusting in their routine and the safety they had always known,
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only for that trust to be violated in the worst
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possible way.
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Speaker 1: It really highlights that gap, doesn't it. Believing danger exists
15:57
out there versus believing it could actually happen to.
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Speaker 2: You, Exactly that little bit of complacency that it won't
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happen here, feeling, Yeah, that's what creates the target. And
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we see the exact same thing tragically with the Aboaf
16:10
family in Diamond Bar on August.
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Speaker 1: Eighth, Elis Abowath shot three times in the head. His wife, Sakina.
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Speaker 2: Saqina, was raped, beaten, forced to swear allegiance to Satan,
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all while her infant son was nearby. She only survived
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because she managed to play dead.
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Speaker 1: Just horrific and the point of entry, after all the panic,
16:28
all the warnings.
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Speaker 2: Almost unbelievably mundane Seqina confirmed it. He came through the
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kitchen door unlocked for this.
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Speaker 1: Unlocked for the cat.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this family, immigrants, building a new life, trying to
16:39
be safe, destroyed because of a simple habit related to
16:42
a pet and the irony. Their neighbor had held a
16:45
block watch meeting just days before, urging everyone to lock
16:49
and chain their doors.
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Speaker 1: Were they aware of the meeting, It seems so.
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Speaker 2: Even Saqina's brother, who was visiting from Iraq, had apparently
16:56
expressed concern, reportedly saying something like in Bagdad, we locked
17:00
doors because of thieves. Here, you have to lock them
17:02
because of this this devil. You can feel that culture clash,
17:05
that bewilderment at the randomness of the threat.
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Speaker 1: It's staggering. The simplicity is just baffling. But it wasn't
17:13
just the fatal attacks where this pattern held right, There
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were survivors whose lives were changed forever due to similar lapses.
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Speaker 2: Definitely. Take Whitney Bennett, just sixteen years old in Sierra
17:24
Madre and July fifth, she was attacked with a tire iron,
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suffered terrible skull fractures, needed four hundred and seventy eight stitches.
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She survived miraculously, and the circumstances her mother had pleaded
17:34
with her earlier that evening to close her bedroom window.
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It was a hot, humid.
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Speaker 1: Night but Whitney.
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Speaker 2: Whitney just wanted some air. Her quote from the hospital,
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whispered through the pain, was simply, I was hot.
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Speaker 1: Mom.
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Speaker 2: That basic, understandable teenage desire for comfort overrode the perceived risk,
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and it nearly cost her her life.
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Speaker 1: And Mary Louise Cannon seventy five in Arcadia, July.
17:58
Speaker 2: Twentieth, another case bludgeoned attacked right after walking through her
18:03
unlocked back door. Her daughter was a nurse, hyper aware
18:07
of the dangers after the Okazaki killings just months earlier.
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Speaker 1: So the daughter had warned her more.
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Speaker 2: Than warned her. She had actually bought her mother a
18:15
sophisticated door alarm system as.
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Speaker 1: A gift, but did she use it No.
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Speaker 2: Mary Louise Cannon, who loved hosting bridge games, apparently saw
18:23
it as an inconvenience, maybe something that interfered with the
18:25
welcoming atmosphere of her home. She reportedly kept it stored
18:29
away unused. She ended up dying from her injuries weeks later,
18:32
never regaining consciousness. Her daughter told the La Times her
18:35
mom just wanted to feel the neighborhood's pulse, not hide
18:38
from it.
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Speaker 1: It's not just carelessness, it's an active resistance to seeing
18:42
your home as needing fortification exactly.
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Speaker 2: That's the sociological blind spot that deeply ingrained American ideal,
18:49
especially for people like Joyce from the Midwest, or immigrant
18:52
families like the Abowaths, maybe bringing ideals of rural openness.
18:57
It just clashed violently with the reality of this new
19:00
urban danger. Warnings got dismissed as you know, just parents fussing,
19:04
or paranoia or just too much trouble.
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Speaker 1: It seems like the belief in their own safety, the
19:09
comfort of their routine, was just a stronger force than
19:12
the caution this new terror demanded.
19:14
Speaker 2: The night stalker didn't need elaborate plans or tools half
19:17
the time. He just needed that one unlocked door, that
19:20
one loose screen, that one moment of human oversight. He
19:23
needed convenience.
19:24
Speaker 1: Okay, So, while these families are grappling with these terrible tragedies,
19:27
and in many cases is profound guilt, the pressure on
19:31
the police must have been unbelievable. Operation Stalker detectives Coreo
19:35
and Salerno, they were under the gun.
19:37
Speaker 2: Immense pressure. They were sorting through thousands of tips, trying
19:41
to connect the dots on a killer whose methods seemed
19:44
erratic shifting from knives to guns, from stealth to brutality.
19:49
But they were methodical. They focused on the evidence, the
19:53
Avius shoe prints, that stolen Toyota wagon, even some dental
19:56
records found under a pseudonym.
19:58
Speaker 1: The net was closing, But it wasn't the police work
20:00
that led directly to his capture in the end, was
20:02
it not directly? Now?
20:04
Speaker 2: It was public exposure that brought it all crashing down,
20:07
And it happened fast and violently.
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Speaker 1: August twenty ninth, nineteen eighty five, his mugshot hits the news.
20:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that infamous picture, wild hair, defiant, stare, the pentagram visible.
20:18
It flashed across TV screens everywhere and triggered instant recognition
20:22
and chaos.
20:23
Speaker 1: Where was he?
20:23
Speaker 2: He was actually in East LA, driving another soulen car.
20:26
Someone recognized him, shouted, and suddenly he was running for
20:28
his life, but he didn't get far.
20:30
Speaker 1: This wasn't a police takedown, not at all.
20:32
Speaker 2: It was mob justice. A crowd maybe one hundred people,
20:35
residents just furious and terrified, chased him down, cornered.
20:39
Speaker 1: Him, and they attacked him viciously.
20:41
Speaker 2: They beat him with whatever they could find. Reports mentioned
20:44
a tire iron, pieces of fencing, even a barbecue fork.
20:48
The police had to intervene to literally save his life,
20:52
to pull him away from the mob.
20:54
Speaker 1: It's a shocking image, that level of public fury. But
20:57
there is a quote from one of the people on
20:59
the mob that really back to our theme.
21:01
Speaker 2: Right amidst the chaos, one man reportedly yelled something like
21:04
he came through my unlocked door of fear. It wasn't
21:07
just about physical revenge. It was this explosion of frustration
21:11
over feeling violated, unsafe in their own homes, feeling like
21:15
the system, like their own routines, had failed them. Ramirez
21:18
had breached that psychological barrier.
21:20
Speaker 1: Even after that brutal beating, Ramirez was apparently completely unfazed,
21:24
defiant utterly.
21:26
Speaker 2: While being treated at the hospital, he supposedly scrawled a
21:28
message on an exam table, death always went with the territory.
21:32
See him in Disneyland, Just pure bravado, no remorse.
21:35
Speaker 1: And that attitude continued right through the trial.
21:38
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. The trial started in nineteen eighty eight. It
21:41
lasted fourteen months, the longest criminal trial in California history
21:45
up to that point. It was a circus Ramirez played
21:47
at the cameras flashed drawings of guillotines. He reveled in
21:51
the attention in his own monstrosity.
21:53
Speaker 1: But the families had their say too. Joyce Nelson's sons testified.
21:58
Speaker 2: They did. Their testimony was in t'cridibly powerful. Don described
22:02
the horrific detail of finding that shoeprint on his mother's face.
22:06
Dale spoke about the emptiness of the home afterwards, saying
22:08
something profound like she raised us to lock out hate,
22:12
not life. They were trying to counter ramirez his narrative
22:15
with the truth of their loss, the dignity of their
22:17
mother's life.
22:17
Speaker 1: The evidence was stacked against.
22:19
Speaker 2: Him, overwhelming. He was convicted on thirteen counts of murder,
22:23
five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, fourteen burglaries. His reaction
22:27
at sentencing pure contempt. He sneered, death is my vengeance.
22:30
Speaker 1: He got the death sentence he did.
22:32
Speaker 2: Judge Jon Sokoloff imposed it, but as often happens, the
22:35
appeals process just dragged on and on.
22:37
Speaker 1: Decades went by and he was never executed.
22:40
Speaker 2: Never. He died in twenty thirteen at age fifty three
22:43
from complications related to be cell lymphoma while still on
22:47
death row. For many families, it felt like a final evasion,
22:51
a denial of ultimate justice.
22:53
Speaker 1: But what's really fascinating in the source material is how
22:55
the family's perspectives shifted over those long years, especially for
22:59
those wrestling with that guilt, like don Nelson.
23:01
Speaker 2: That's a crucial part of the legacy. The state didn't
23:04
carry out the execution, but the experience transformed many of
23:07
the people left behind. Don Nelson's journey is maybe the
23:11
most striking example.
23:12
Speaker 1: He went from wanting Ramirez.
23:13
Speaker 2: Dead, absolutely fried was the word he used initially, but
23:17
over years of reflection, engaging with prison ministry, he started
23:20
to see not excuses but the context, the horrifically abused
23:24
kid who became the monster, and that changed.
23:26
Speaker 1: His view on the death penalty itself completely.
23:30
Speaker 2: By twenty sixteen, he was actively campaigning against capital punishment,
23:33
testifying for California's Proposition sixty two. His reasoning was so powerful,
23:39
killing him won't unlock mom's door or mend our hearts.
23:42
His wife echoed that saying forgiveness wasn't about forgetting, it
23:45
was about taking back control, refusing to let Ramirez continue
23:49
to define their emotional lives.
23:51
Speaker 1: That's an incredible transformation.
23:53
Speaker 2: It really is, and you see the trauma ripple outwards
23:56
in other ways too. Joyce's granddaughter, Colleen Nelson, she became
24:00
I'm a therapist specializing in PTSD. That image of the
24:03
footprint haunted her, drove her career.
24:05
Speaker 1: Path, and other survivors.
24:07
Speaker 2: Many fortified their lives understandably. Sakina Abowaf, who survived that
24:11
horrific attack, raised her sons in what sources described as
24:14
fortified seclusion, surrounded by security cameras, constant vigilance. Whitney Bennett,
24:19
the teenager beaten with the tire.
24:20
Speaker 1: Iron, She became a counselor.
24:22
Speaker 2: Yes, focused on prevention, sharing her story, warning others with
24:26
that stark message one window changed everything, don't let it
24:29
be yours.
24:30
Speaker 1: So the shadow of the Ninth Stalker is definitely still felt.
24:32
You see it in true crime documentaries like the twenty
24:35
twenty one Netflix series and these upcoming tapes with Ramirez
24:39
himself apparently laughing about the hunt.
24:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, his notoriety persists, But the families, people like the Nelsons,
24:47
they forged a different kind of legacy, a more positive
24:50
one in a way, by taking Joyce's defiant statement not
24:54
a prisoner and reinterpreting it. It's become a call for
24:57
what you might call vigilant normalcy, using modern tools smart homes,
25:02
neighborhood watches, to stay safe without sacrificing your freedom, without
25:06
living in a self imposed prison. It's about integrating security,
25:09
not being ruled by fear. That's the hard earned lesson.
25:12
Speaker 1: So when we boil it all down, looking back at
25:14
everything we've discussed from the sources, what's the core takeaway
25:17
from the Nightstalker's reign of terror?
25:19
Speaker 2: I think it fundamentally revealed a vulnerability that wasn't about
25:22
location or wealth, or even how strong your locks were.
25:25
It was about human nature. Ramirez showed brutally that our
25:30
innate desire for comfort, for routine, for convenience, it often
25:34
overrides the mental effort needed for constant vigilance against a
25:37
threat that feels random or.
25:39
Speaker 1: Distant until it isn't distant anymore exactly.
25:41
Speaker 2: And the cost of that complacency of underestimating that random
25:45
threat was just devastatingly high for so many people.
25:48
Speaker 1: That internal conflict, our habits versus necessary caution. That really
25:52
is the crux of it, isn't it. Joyce Nelson wanting
25:54
to live freely, not as a prisoner. It's an admirable sentiment,
25:58
completely understandable.
25:59
Speaker 2: Deeply unders rooted in her character, her history. But the
26:03
sources make it tragically clear, in that specific time, facing
26:07
that specific predator, that openness created the fatal opportunity.
26:12
Speaker 1: And that lesson is literally memorialized, now, isn't it. There's
26:14
a plaque in Monterey Park, yes.
26:16
Speaker 2: Near where Joyce lived. It reads something like here a
26:20
grandmother lived free. May we all learn to live safe.
26:24
It captures that balance, that tension perfectly. Her story and
26:29
all the others who suffered because of an unlocked window
26:31
or an ignored warning serves as this permanent, tragic reminder.
26:36
Speaker 1: It's a powerful local reminder. But maybe we can take
26:39
this idea one step further, applying it more broadly metaphorically
26:43
even hone you mean, well, we learned physically to lock
26:46
our doors because of Ramirez. We bought dead bolts, installed alarms,
26:51
secured the.
26:51
Speaker 2: Outside right external security.
26:53
Speaker 1: But what about our internal security? What about the personal,
26:56
unheated warnings we might ignore in our own lives, things
27:00
related to our health maybe, or our relationships, our finances,
27:04
our mental well being.
27:05
Speaker 2: I see where you're going the areas where we resist
27:08
taking preventative action, resist fortifying ourselves because well, because we
27:12
don't want to feel like a prisoner of caution or
27:14
responsibility or self care exactly.
27:17
Speaker 1: We leave those internal doors unlocked, maybe out of complacency
27:20
or denial, or just because it feels easier in the moment.
27:22
Speaker 2: The source materials focus on something as simple as leaving
27:25
a door slightly ajar. It does suggest that maybe the
27:29
real enduring stoker we always need to guard against, even
27:32
an external monster like Ramirez. But that internal tendency towards
27:36
complacency itself.
27:38
Speaker 1: That reluctance to secure ourselves against threats we know exist,
27:41
even if they feel random or far off. Maybe that's
27:44
the window we really need to learn to close.
27:46
Speaker 2: We have to find that balance, don't. We strive to
27:49
be safe, but never ever stop striving to be free.