Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Serial Killer Documentary： Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker)

Transcript

Serial Killer Documentary： Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker) · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:22
  Speaker 1: The bride wore a calf-length white wedding dress with long
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: lace sleeves. The groom wore a starched set of prison blues.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: The pants, a little too long, the shirt tails hanging out.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: She was glowing. He was nervous. On October 3, 1996,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the ceremony took place in the large, gray-walled main visiting
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: room of California's San Quentin Prison. According to Jim Doyle,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: writing the San Francisco Chronicle, the bride, Doreen Leoy, age 41,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: was a freelance magazine editor with a bachelor's degree in
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: English and an IQ of 152. The groom, serial killer
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: and rapist Richard Ramirez, was on death row, awaiting execution.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Seven years earlier, in 1989, Ramirez had been convicted on
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: 43 counts, including 13 murders, and the authorities have good
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: reason to believe that he had committed several others. For
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: over a year, starting in the spring of 1985, the
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: residents of Los Angeles County lived in fear of the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: anonymous Night Stalker, as he was called, forcing many to
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: alter their nighttime habits and install better locks on their
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: doors and windows, and invest in electronic security systems. The
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: newspapers dubbed him the Night Stalker because he always attacked
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: at night like a vampire. The visiting room at San Quentin,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: with its rows of orange plastic seats bolted to the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: floor and various vending machines lined up against one wall,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: was crowded that day with other prisoners and family members
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: who had come on their appointed visiting day. Many of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: them stared at the infamous inmate and kept their distance,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: even though the Night Stalker seemed considerably less ferocious than
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: he had been when he had spooked the courtroom at
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: his lengthy trial back in 1989. Instead of his signature
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: dark glasses, Ramirez, now age 36, wore round prescription glasses.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: He moved a bit hesitantly and seemed ill at ease.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: The long-haired brunette who longed to be the Night Stalker's
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: bride had first contacted Ramirez after his arrest in 1985.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and had written him nearly 75 letters during his incarceration.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: He finally proposed to her in 1988, but prison rules
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: delayed their wedding. Other women tried to steal him away
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: from her, visiting him in prison and lavishing him with
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: all kinds of attention. Doreen often ran into them when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: she came for her visits, and at least one woman
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: threatened physical violence if Doreen didn't abandon her claim on
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: the Night Stalker. But Doreen persevered, and in the end,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: she got her man. She claimed to be a virgin
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: at the time of their wedding, and marrying Ramirez wouldn't
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: change that because conjugal visits are not permitted for death
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: row inmates. According to Philip Carlo, author of The Night Stalker,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Ramirez was drawn to her precisely because she was a virgin.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Doreen had been raised a Roman Catholic, but she considered
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: herself an agnostic and could accommodate Ramirez's professed Satanism. When
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: she had purchased their wedding rings, she'd bought a gold
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: band for herself but a platinum band for her husband
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: to be. Satanists don't wear gold, he'd explained to her.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: The civil ceremony started at 11.10 a.m. and was performed
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: by Mr. L. Wester, who joined two other inmates to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: their brides that morning. Ramirez's sister Ruth, his brother Joseph,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and Joseph's teenage daughter attended. Ramirez cautioned his niece to
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: pull down her skirt. He knew other inmates were ogling her.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: As the couple said their vows, Doreen was bursting with
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: joy and happiness. Her long-awaited dream was finally coming true.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: She was becoming Mrs. Richard Ramirez. Doreen chose not to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: believe the mountain of evidence that had been presented at
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: her husband's trial, especially the testimony that described his gruesome methods.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Richard Ramirez typically came in the night, sneaking into his
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: victim's bedrooms. Males were dispatched quickly, usually with a bullet
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: to the head. Females were kept alive to be savored
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: after he ransacked the homes, looking for valuables. After raping
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: and degrading the women, sometimes repeatedly, he would most often
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: kill them, or at least try to. Amazingly, some of
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: his victims managed to survive his various attacks. Of all
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the serial killers who have plagued the modern world, the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Night Stalker was perhaps the most sensational in how he
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: committed his crimes. He was a living nightmare, a boogeyman,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: who invaded bedrooms and tore innocent people from their dreams.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: His method was worthy of a B-grade Hollywood horror movie.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: He was a killer tailor-made for his prime hunting ground,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles. In 1978, 18-year-old Ricardo Levia, a.k.a. Richard Ramirez,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: moved to Southern California from El Paso, Texas, his hometown.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: According to UPI reporters Aurelio Rojas and K-Mac Zisk, he
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: dropped out of the ninth grade and had been living
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: the life of a slacker, smoking marijuana and living on
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: convenience store junk food. His diet was so rich in sugar,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: his teeth eventually started to rot, which made his breath
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: foul and offensive. But his halitosis fit in with the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: demonic personality he was intentionally cultivating. His habitual pot smoking
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: led to several arrests for possession. as well as a
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: misdemeanor theft charge. In California, he was twice arrested for
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: auto theft, in Pasadena in 1981 and Los Angeles in 1984.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: His father would remain that Richard was a good boy
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: whose marijuana consumption put him out of control, but it
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: would be hard to pinpoint precisely what influences sent Richard
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Ramirez in the direction of devil worship. He often drew
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the five-point pentagram, the symbol of the devil, on his
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: own body, and after his trial, he would shout, Hail Satan!
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: in open court. He was a big fan of rock
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: bands who sung about Satanism, particularly the Australian heavy metal
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: band ACDC, whose album, Highway to Hell, was Ramirez's absolute favorite.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: One song on the album, Night Prowler, contains the lyrics,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Was that a noise outside your window? What's that shadow
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: on the blind? As you lie there naked like a
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: body in a tomb, suspended animation as I slip into
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: your room. But it's hard to believe that rock songs
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and marijuana alone could turn a misdirected youth into one
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of the most heinous serial rapists and murderers in modern history.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: The turning point in Ramirez's life might well have been
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the night he witnessed his cousin Mike murder his wife.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Mike had fought as a Green Beret in Vietnam, but
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the war had changed him. After returning home, he boasted
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: torturing and mutilating the enemy and and had brought back
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Polaroids to prove it. He and his 13-year-old cousin Richard
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: would hang out all day, getting high, which is just
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: what they were doing when Mike's wife started to nag
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: him about getting his life together and finding a job.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Mike pulled out a gun to shut her up and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: shot her in the face, killing her. Ramirez was splattered
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: with the woman's blood. Mike's lawyer pointed to the incredible
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: stress of his horrible war experiences as a mitigating factor.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: He was ultimately convicted, but the judge was lenient in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: his sentencing. Mike had a significant influence on Richard, who
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: became fascinated with Mike's war victim's horrible photographs. After the
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: murder of Mike's wife, Richard, the epileptic youngest child in
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: a family of three boys and two sisters, started skipping
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: school and smoking pot as much as he could every day.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: He soon took to stealing to support his drug use.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: The police have no evidence that Richard Ramirez killed at
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: any time before he reached Los Angeles and little is
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: known about his activities in the first few years he
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: lived there. No doubt, his crimes were escalating during this period.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Simple theft had led to breaking and entering and eventually,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: he must have become adept at it. Initially, he probably
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: stole whatever valuables he could find, then quickly left before
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: he was caught. But as he grew more proficient, he
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: also grew bolder Staying longer in the houses he burglarized.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Perhaps he stayed to watch the inhabitants sleeping in their beds.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe he took souvenirs, particularly items that belonged to the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: female residents. Like his cousin Mike, he might even have
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: taken photographs that he could relish later. This, no doubt,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: excited him and helped him develop the depraved fantasies that
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: took over his thinking. But eventually, he felt compelled to
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: do more. The horrible scenes that ran through his mind
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: like a horror movie on a continuous loop weren't satisfying
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: him anymore. They had to emerge from his mind and
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: become a reality. When Richard Ramirez finally crossed that line
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and started to play out his fantasies, the Night Stalker
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: was born. Whether by conscious decision or inevitable evolution, Ramirez
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: began to insert himself into his depraved fantasies and actively
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: participate in their reenactment for his own gratification. His first
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: known victim was a 79-year-old Glassell Park resident named Jenny Vincow.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: On June 28, 1984, she had left a window open
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: because it had been hot that evening. Ramirez simply removed
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the screen and climbed in. Vincao's son, who lived in
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the apartment over her ground floor apartment, discovered her body
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: sprawled out on the bed. She had been stabbed repeatedly,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and her throat was slashed so savagely she was nearly decapitated.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: The intruder also ransacked her apartment and helped himself to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: her valuables. fingerprints were recovered from the windowsill, and the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: autopsy revealed signs of sexual assault, the Night Stalker's fantasy
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: had finally become a reality. It would be eight months
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: before he struck again. No doubt Richard Ramirez, like most
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: budding serial killers, fed off the memory of his first victim,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: reliving the experience of rape and murder over and over
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: again in his mind. If he had taken what criminal
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: profiles call a souvenir, a hairbrush, a piece of underwear, eyeglasses,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: any object intimately connected with the victim. He might have
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: used that to stoke his recollections and help him elaborate
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: on his fantasy. But eventually, the mental reenactment of that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: initial crime wouldn't be as satisfying as it had once been.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: The killer would need a new experience to replenish the fantasy.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: He might have tried to control himself for a period,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: but the pressure within him was mounting. Eventually, he would
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: give in to his compulsion. and do it again. On
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: March 17, 1985, at 11.30 p.m., 20-year-old Angela Barrios was
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: just returning home from a long day at work. She
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: lived in a condominium that she shared with a roommate
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in Rosemead, a middle-class town northeast of Los Angeles. She
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: pulled her car into the driveway and opened the garage
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: door with a remote control. She was tired and hadn't
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: had dinner yet. All she wanted to do was get
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: inside and unwind. but as she got out of her car,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: she heard something behind her. A dark figure suddenly rushed
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: up to her. He was tall and dressed entirely in black.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: A navy blue baseball cap was pulled down low over
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: his brow. He was holding a gun. He pointed the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: gun in her face, holding it just inches from her nose.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: She pleaded with him not to kill her. She tried
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: not to look at his face, hoping that he might
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: spare her, but she couldn't help but look. His eyes
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: were cold and hard. She continued to beg for mercy,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: but he ignored her. Perhaps he was angered by her pleading,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and he pulled the trigger. The sound of the gunshot
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: was like an explosion in the enclosed garage. Angela collapsed
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: on the concrete floor. She was alive, but too afraid
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to move. The gunman stepped over her and went to
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the door that led to her condo, kicking her body
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: out of the way so he could open it. Angela
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: lay perfectly still, laying dead. After a while, she didn't
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: know how long. She realized that her hand was bleeding.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Her keys were still in that hand. She'd raised her
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: hands instinctively when the man had menaced her with the gun,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and the bullet had miraculously hit the keys and ricocheted away.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Angela collected herself and got to her feet. She had
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: started to run out of the garage when she heard
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: another gunshot behind her. She kept running, just hoping to escape,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: but she ran into the man in black as he
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: came out the front door of her condo. She tried
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to get away from him, but her legs were shaky.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: She stumbled back towards her car in the garage, convinced
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that he was going to finish her off. But instead
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of pursuing her, the man shoved the gun into his
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: belt and fled. Angela Barrios was saved from this madman.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: Her roommate, Dale Okakazi, age 34, wasn't so lucky. Angela
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: found her face down on the kitchen floor in a
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: pool of her own blood. There was blood everywhere, on
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the walls, furniture, and appliances. Angela ran to her side
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to check for signs of life, but Okakazi had been
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: shot through the forehead. Angela grabbed the phone and called 911. Later,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: when the police searched the crime scene, they found the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: killer's baseball cap in the garage. What happened exactly inside
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: the condominium is unknown, but for some reason, Killing Dale
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Okazaki was not the experience Richard Ramirez had hoped for. Incredibly,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: that same night he struck again in nearby Monterey Park.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: According to author Clifford L. Leindecker, a policeman was dispatched
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: to investigate an empty yellow Chevrolet parked with its motor running.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: The transmission was in reverse. The car parked behind it
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: was keeping it from moving any farther. When the officer
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: got out of his patrol car to check inside the vehicle,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: he found an unconscious woman lying on the ground nearby.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: The officer ran to her and immediately checked her vital signs.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: He noticed that her stockings were ripped and that there
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was an ugly bruise on her leg. She was alive,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: but just barely. He ran back to his car and
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: radioed for an ambulance. When he returned to the woman,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: he discovered a metal medallion and a torn section of
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a $ 20 bill on the pavement. He tried to revive her,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: hoping she could tell him what had happened, but her
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: breathing was labored. He could tell she was in trouble
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: and needed immediate medical attention, but in the dim light,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: he hadn't noticed that she had been shot several times.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: The woman, a 30-year-old Taiwanese native named Xia Lian Yu,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: known to her friends as Victoria, died before the ambulance arrived.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: The killer was in a frenzy. Killing Dale Okazaki had
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: not satisfied his need, so on the spur of the moment,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: he had attacked Xia Lian Yu. but murdering and assaulting
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: her might not have done it for him because he
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: murdered an 8-year-old girl in Eagle Rock, California, three days later.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: A week later, on March 27, 1984, he emerged again,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and this time he found an M.O. that worked for him.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: On the morning of March 27, 1984, Peter Zazera arrived
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: at his parents' home in Whittier, California. His 64-year-old father, Vincent,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: had retired from investment counseling and now operated his pizzeria.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: His mother, Maxine, 44, was an attorney. Peter rang the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: bell several times, but no one answered, so he let
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: himself in. What he found was horrifying. His father's body
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: was on the sofa in the den. He'd been shot
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: through the left temple. He appeared to have died instantly. Mrs.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Azara was found stretched out in bed, face up and naked.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Her eyes had been gouged out, the bloody sockets empty.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: She'd been stabbed repeatedly around the face, neck, abdomen, and groin.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: There was a sizable, T-shaped knife wound in her left breast.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: An autopsy later revealed that, like her husband, she'd first
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: been shot in the head and had probably died instantly.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: The stabbing and mutilation were done post-mortem. The house had
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: been ransacked and valuables were taken. With these killings, Richard
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Ramirez had discovered a method that accomplished his goals and
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: satisfied his fantasy, for he repeated it many times. Dispatch
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the mail quickly to get him out of the way
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: so that he could have his perverse way with the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: woman in the house. The man was just an impediment
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and not part of the fantasy. The woman was the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: real object of desire. Six weeks later, Richard Ramirez returned
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: to Monterey Park and broke into the home of Harold
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and Jean Wu, waking them from a sound sleep. Ramirez
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: took care of Mr. Wu first, shooting the 66-year-old man
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: through the head. He pummeled Mrs. Wu, 63, viciously with
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: his fists, demanding to know where she kept her money.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: She was too worried about her husband to be coherent,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: so he bound her hands behind her back with thumb
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: cuffs to keep her still as he searched the house.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: After he found what he wanted, he returned to the bedroom,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: dragged the tiny woman to the side of the bed,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and raped her. When he was finished, he left. Mr. Wu, however,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: was not dead. Despite his terrible head wound, he'd managed
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: to crawl to the den where he dialed 911. He
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: could not tell the dispatcher what the problem was, but
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: the call was traced and an ambulance and patrol car
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: were dispatched to the Wu's address. Harold Wu was rushed
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: to the hospital but died later that night. Jean Wu
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: was treated for her injuries. She was able to give
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: the police a physical description of her attacker. Two weeks later,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: on May 30th, Ruth Wilson, 41, was awakened in the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: middle of the night by a flashlight shining in her face.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Ramirez had silently broken into her Burbank home and was
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: holding a gun to her head. He ordered her to
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: get out of bed and go to her 12-year-old son's room.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Ramirez jumped on the boy's bed and put a gun
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: to the child's head, warning Ruth Wilson not to make
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: a sound. He handcuffed the boy and locked him in
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: a closet. Don't look at me. He snarled at Ruth.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: If you look at me again, I'll shoot you. Assuming
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: he was a burglar, she offered to give him her
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: most valuable possession, a gold and diamond necklace. She led
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: him to the dresser in her bedroom where she kept it,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: hoping that this would placate him. But it didn't. After
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: rummaging through the house, he ordered her to turn around
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and put her hands together. He tied her up behind
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: her back with a pair of pantyhose. He then shoved
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: her onto the bed as she pleaded with him. After
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: tearing off her pink nightgown, he raped and sodomized her.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: His breath was so hot and foul as he lay
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: on her, she nearly gagged. Ruth Wilson told Ramirez he
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: must have had a very unhappy life to have done
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: this to her. He told her she looked pretty good
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: for her age and said he would let her live
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: even though he had killed many others. When she complained
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that the pantyhose around her wrists were cutting off her circulation,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: he loosened them for her and brought her a robe
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: before taking her son out of the closet and handcuffing
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: them side by side. Ramirez left them there. Later, the
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: boy was able to get to a phone and call 911.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: When the police asked Ruth to describe her attacker, She
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: told them that he was a tall Hispanic with long,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: dark hair. The attacks continued, throwing the city of Los
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Angeles into a state of panic. One police official referred
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: to the killer rapist as the Valley Intruder. The newspapers
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: dubbed him the Midnight Stalker, conjuring up images of a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: modern-day Dracula or Jack the Ripper. But Ramirez was just
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: getting started. In the spring of 1985, he was going
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: through a period of escalation. By the summer, He was
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: on a full-blown rampage. On May 29th, Malvia Keller, 83,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and her invalid sister Blanche Wolfe, 80, were found in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Keller's Monrovia home. Both women had been beaten so severely
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: with a hammer that the handle was split when the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: police found it. Blanche had a puncture wound above one ear.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: An inverted pentagram with a tip pointing down had been
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: drawn in lipstick on Malvia's inner thigh. a second pentagram
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: was found on the bedroom wall over Blanche's comatose body.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: Ramirez had tried to rape Malvia, the older sister. Police
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: experts estimated that the sisters had been there about two
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: days after the attack before being discovered. Doctors were able
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: to revive Blanche, but Malvia soon died of her injuries.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: One month later, on June 27th, the Night Stalker raped
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: a six-year-old girl in Arcadia. A day later, the body
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of 32-year-old Patty Elaine Higgins was found in her Arcadia home.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Her throat slit. Five days later, on July 2nd, the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: body of 75-year-old Mary Louise Cannon was found in her
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Arcadia home. Like Patty Higgins, she had been beaten. Her
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: throat slit. The house had been ransacked. On July 5th,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Ramirez returned to Arcadia and beat 16-year-old Deidre Palmer savagely
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: with a tire iron. She survived her injuries. Two days later,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: on July 7th, the body of Joyce Lucille Nelson was
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: found in her home in Monterey Park. The 61-year-old had
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: been beaten to death with a blunt object. Later that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: same night in Monterey Park, Linda Fortuna, a 63-year-old registered nurse,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: was awakened at around 3.30 a.m. by a tall, bony
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: man dressed in black. The man, who fit the description
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of the night stalker, was pointing a gun at her.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: He ordered her out of bed and into the bathroom,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: warning her to be quiet. After ransacking the house, he
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: returned to her, forcing her back onto her bed. He
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: attempted to rape and sodomize her, but he could not
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: maintain an erection. He was frustrated and humiliated, and she
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: was sure he would kill her. He screamed at her furiously,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: but then gathered up the valuables he wanted and left.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: She was astounded that he had spared her life. Less
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: than two weeks later, on July 20th, The night stalker
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: chose a new location in the Los Angeles area, Glendale.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Maxson Kneeling and his wife Lila, both 66, were found
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: in their bed, both shot in the head and horribly
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: slashed with a knife. Maxson had been butchered so brutally,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: his head was barely attached to his body. Police experts
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: had difficulty recreating the attack based on the evidence. It's
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: possible that the stalker killed them both quickly with his gun,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: then mutilated them post-mortem. but given his developing M.O., it's
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: possible that he kept Mrs. Kneeling alive to play out
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: his perverse fantasy. But he also might have failed to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: perform sexually with Mrs. Kneeling, just as he had with
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Linda Fortuna. So he turned July 20th into a doubleheader,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: striking again, this time in Sun Valley. Chetat Asawahem, 32,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: was shot in his sleep. His wife, Sakima, 29, was raped,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: forced to perform oral sex on the intruder, then beaten mercilessly.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: He then sodomized the couple's 8-year-old son. Ramirez tied Mrs.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Asawahem in her bedroom and left, but not before taking $ 30, 000
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in cash and jewelry. On August 6, Ramirez targeted another couple,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Christopher and Virginia Peterson, ages 38 and 27. Following his pattern,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Ramirez broke into the Petersons' Northridge bedroom and shot them
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: both in the head. But they didn't die. In fact, Mr. Peterson,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a powerfully built truck driver, got out of bed and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: chased the intruder away despite having a bullet lodged in
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: his brain. Miraculously, the Petersons survived their wounds. Two nights
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: after the attack of the Petersons, Ramirez lashed out again,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: this time in Diamond Bar, California, and this time he
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: had it his way. Ahmed Zia, 35, was shot in
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the head and killed while he slept. With the husband
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: out of the way, Ramirez was free to play out
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: his fantasy with Zia's wife, Sue Kia Zia, 28. The
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: night stalker raped her, sodomized her, and forced her to
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: perform fellatio on him. This was Ramirez's MO played out
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the way he liked it, and the experts who profiled
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: him believed that this was the way he would attack
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: again and again, probably adding a little something more each time,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: a new perversion, a twist on an old predilection, and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: most likely increasing the physical brutality. Los Angeles County was terrified.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: The Night Stalker's crimes were becoming more frequent. The cooling-off
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: periods were shortening, and his rage was escalating. There was
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: little doubt that he would strike again. The only question
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: was where and when. But as it turned out, Ramirez
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: decided to abandon his familiar territory. After the attack on
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the Ziaz, he headed north. On August 18, 1985, Peter
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and Barbara Pan were found in their blood-soaked bed in
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Lake Merced, a suburb of San Francisco. Both had been
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: shot in the head. Mr. Pan, a 66-year-old accountant, was
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: pronounced dead at the scene. Mrs. Pan, 64, survived but
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: would be an invalid for the rest of her life.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Scrawled on the wall in lipstick were an inverted pentagram
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: and the words, Jack the Knife. which is from a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: song called The Ripper by the heavy metal band Judas Priest.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Local police determined that the killer had come in through
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: an open window. Fearing that LA's Night Stalker had moved
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: into their precinct, homicide investigators sent a bullet removed from Mr.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Pan to a forensic team in Los Angeles. The bullet
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: matched others removed from two of the Night Stalker's Los
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Angeles County crime scenes. Police in San Francisco searched their
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: unsolved homicide files and came up with two incidents that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: fit the stalker's M.O. On February 20, 1985, sisters Mary
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: and Christina Caldwell, ages 70 and 50, had been stabbed
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: to death in their Telegraph Hill apartment. If this was
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: indeed the work of the night stalker, he had committed
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: this crime about a month before the night he killed
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Dale Okazaki and Xianlian Yu, and wounded Angela Berrios. The
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: police also discovered that on June 2nd, the day after
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: the murders of the elderly sisters Blanche Wolfe and Malvia Keller,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Theodore Wildings, 25, was shot in the head while he
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: slept in his apartment in the Cow Hollow section of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: San Francisco. His girlfriend, Nancy Bryan, 25, was then brutally
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: raped by the killer. Could the Night Stalker have been
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: active in San Francisco and Los Angeles throughout 1985 and
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the police in San Francisco didn't realize it? Panic spread
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: through the city by the bay. To quell fears, Mayor
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Dianne Feinstein talked publicly about the hunt for the Night Stalker,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: but in doing so, angered detectives by giving away too
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: many details of his crimes, thus impeding their investigation. They
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: did not want a repeat of the situation Los Angeles
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: had just gone through. Fifteen unanswered attacks, including fourteen murders
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: and five rapes, had been committed by a maddeningly elusive perpetrator.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But the San Francisco police caught a break when the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: manager of a flop house in the Tenderloin District came
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: forward and claimed that a young man who fit the
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: stalker's description had stayed at his establishment from time to
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: time over the past year and a half. The manager
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: remembered that the man had rotten teeth and smelled terrible.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: The police checked the room he had last stayed in.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: On the bathroom door, they found a drawn pentagram. The
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: man had checked out during the day on August 17th. Mr.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and Mrs. Pan had been attacked that night. Investigators then
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: located a man from the El Sobrante district who said
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: he had purchased some jewelry, a diamond ring and a
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: pair of cufflinks, from a young man who fit the
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: stalker's description. Further investigation revealed that these items had belonged
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to Mr. Pan. On August 24th, while the police in
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: San Francisco were scrambling to find the mysterious young man
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: with rotten teeth, the night stalker had found another couple
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: whom he could use to play out his violent fantasy.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Except this couple was not in the Bay Area. They
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: were asleep in bed in Mission Viejo, 50 miles south
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. A computer engineer and his 29-year-old fiancé
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: had just drifted off to sleep when loud gunshots suddenly
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: awakened them in the room. Instinctively, she reached out to
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: her fiancé, but he had been serialized. wounded. Before she
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: realized what was happening, the intruder grabbed her by the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: hair and hauled her into another bedroom, where he tied
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: her ankles and wrists with neckties. The man then asked
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: her if she knew who he was, admitting that he
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: was the killer who was getting all the press coverage
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: and on television. He rummaged through the house looking for valuables,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: but there was nothing small enough to steal easily. Angry
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: that the couple had so little, he returned to her
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and raped her, not once, but twice. The horrible stink
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of his breath made her gag. The man was still
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: angry that there was nothing worth stealing. Afraid of what
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: he might do next, she told him to look in
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a drawer where she knew her fiancé kept some money.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Swear to Satan, he bellowed at her. Out of fright,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: She did what he wanted and swore to Satan that
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: she was telling the truth. The stalker found the money,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: and as he counted it, he mocked her, telling her
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: that this was what she was worth. It was what
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: had saved her, he said. She prayed that this was
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the end of it, that he would just leave now
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: that he had the cash. But he wasn't through with
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: her yet. Swear your love for Satan, he demanded. Afraid
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of what he might do next, she did as he asked.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I love Satan, she mumbled. He ordered her to say
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: it again and again. He yanked her by the hair
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and made her kneel, then forced her to perform oral
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: sex on him. When he was finished, he stepped back
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and stared at her. Still bound by the neckties, she
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: was sure that he was going to shoot her just
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: as he had shot her fiancé. But he didn't. He
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: laughed at her. Then suddenly, he was gone. She quickly
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: worked herself free of the neckties and went to the
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: window in time to see him getting into an old
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: orange-colored Toyota station wagon. She immediately called 911. Earlier that night,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: a teenager working on his motorcycle in his parents' garage
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: noticed the orange Toyota driving into the neighborhood, and he
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: saw it again as it was leaving. It struck him
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: as suspicious, so he jotted down the license plate number.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: The next morning, he called the police about the car.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: With a plate number, the police determined that the 1976
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: orange Toyota had been stolen in LA's Chinatown while the
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: owner was dining at a restaurant. An alert was put
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: out for the car, and two days later, it was
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: located in the Rampart section of Los Angeles. The police
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: kept the car under surveillance for nearly 24 hours, hoping
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: that the night stalker would return for it, but he didn't.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: A forensics team scoured the car for evidence and came
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: up with one good fingerprint, which they sent to Sacramento
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: for analysis. Hours later, the computer had found a match.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: The print belonged to Ricardo Richard Levia Ramirez. Further analysis
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: revealed that this print matched a print taken from a
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: windowsill at the Pan's house near San Francisco. At long last,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the police knew who their suspect was. Now they had
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: to find him before he struck again. Seven days after
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the attack on the computer engineer and his fiancée in
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Mission Viejo, Ramirez was on the prowl for another vehicle
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: he could steal. Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: neighborhood to go shopping for cars. The 3700 block of
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: East Hubbard Street in Los Angeles is in a largely
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Hispanic area. Perhaps Ramirez felt that he could blend in there,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: but he had no idea how fiercely these residents would
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: protect their property. Ramirez's first mistake was trying to steal
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Faustino Pignon's prized red Mustang. Ramirez... who was wearing a
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: black Jack Daniels t-shirt, had been hopping fences between yards,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: searching for a car he could steal easily. He'd been
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: chased off the property next door to Pignon's home and
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: wound up in Pignon's yard. Ramirez must have thought luck
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: was with him because the Mustang parked in the driveway
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. He
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: jumped in and started the engine, but he hadn't noticed
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: that the car's owner was underneath the car on his back,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: working on the transmissions. As soon as Pignon, 56, heard
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the engine start, he rolled out from under the car.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Incensed that anyone would dare touch his prized possession, Pignon
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: reached through the window and grabbed Ramirez around the neck.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I've got a gun, Ramirez warned, but Pignon didn't care.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: No one was going to take his car. Ramirez put
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: the car into gear and tried to drive away, but
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Pignon wouldn't let go of him. The vehicle crashed into
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a fence, then into the garage. Pignon got the door open,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: hauled Ramirez out, and threw him to the ground. Ramirez
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: scrambled to his feet and ran across the street, just
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: as 28-year-old Angelina de la Torres was getting into her
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Ford Granada. He ran up to her car and stuck
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: his head through the driver's window, demanding that she give
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: him the keys, threatening in Spanish to kill her if
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: she didn't. She screamed for help, and her husband, Manuel, 32,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: came running from the backyard. According to Nancy Skelton in
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Times, he grabbed a length of metal
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: fence post as he passed through the gate along the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: side of the house. In the meantime, Jose Bergoin, who
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: had heard the ruckus in Faustino Pignon's driveway, had called
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the police. He ran outside to help Pignon, and when
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: he heard Angela's scream, he called to his sons, Jamie, 21,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: and Julio, 17, to come quick. As the brothers ran
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: to help Mrs. De La Torres, They saw the skinny
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: stranger scrambling across the front seat of her car. Jamie
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: recognized him from photographs that had been published in the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: newspapers and broadcast on television. He yelled that this was
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: the killer, the Night Stalker. The men made a mad
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: dash to catch him. Ramirez ran for his life, but
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Manuel de la Torres caught up with him and hit
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: him across the neck with a three-and-a-half-foot metal post. Ramirez
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: kept running, but de la Torres stayed on him, whacking
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: him repeatedly from behind. Jamie Bergon caught up with Ramirez
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: and punched him. Ramirez stumbled and fell, but quickly got
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: up and continued running with de la Torres and the
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Bergoin brothers on his heels. Then, unexpectedly, Ramirez stopped and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: faced them. His eyes flashed as he laughed and stuck
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: out his tongue at them. He played the part of
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: the madman. but his pursuers were taken aback for only
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: a moment. They lunged at him, and the chase continued. Finally,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a block away from where it all began, de la
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Torres swung hard and hit Ramirez on the head. The
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: night stalker collapsed to the ground. Jamie and Jose Balgoin
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: closed in on him to keep him down until the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: police arrived. One day after, Richard Ramirez's face was made public,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: and the night stalker was in custody and behind bars. Ramirez, 26,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: was charged with 14 murders and 31 other felonies related
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to his 1985 murder, rape, and robbery spree upon his arrest.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: The 15th murder in San Francisco also hung over his head,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: with the potential for a trial in Orange County for
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: rape and attempted murder. Early in the case, two public
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: defenders were appointed to Richard Ramirez, but he disliked them.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Another defense attorney came and went before the Ramirez family
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: retained Daniel and Arturo Hernandez. They had never before tried
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a death penalty case, but had worked together on homicide cases.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Their presentation wasn't helped much when at the arraignment in
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: October 1985, Ramirez flashed a pentagram drawn on his palm
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and shouted, Hail Satan! This kind of behavior raised anxiety
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: levels because, on another occasion, When the courtroom lights suddenly
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: went out, the deputy marshals drew their pistols and told
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: everyone to hit the floor. They then dragged Ramirez out
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: of the courtroom. The Hernandez's began their long list of
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: pre-trial motions by filing for a change of venue, insisting
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: that the adverse publicity in Los Angeles County had infected
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the entire community, and hence the jury pool. Ramirez could
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: not receive a fair trial, they claimed, because many middle-class
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: people in the area had an image embedded in their
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: consciousness of the night stalker breaking into their homes. In fact,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: a survey they had done indicated that 93% of 300
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: people polled had heard about Ramirez and the majority believed
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: that he was guilty. On January 10, 1987, the Los
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Angeles Times reported the decision in this 13-day hearing, a
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: taste of things to come. Judge Dionne Morrow said that
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: given the substantial pool of potential jurors in the county,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: he did not believe that argument was sound. This is
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the largest community, I think, he stated, of any court
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: system in the country. As Ramirez was led in chains
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: from the courtroom, he grinned at his growing coterie of
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: female supporters. Some believed in his innocence. Others just thought
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: he was cute. In another hearing, Judge Elva Soper granted
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: a request for a gag order on both sides. By May,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: a trial date was set for the end of September.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: That proved to be highly optimistic. This case was going
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to spread into other states and even Mexico, seeking witnesses
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: and evidence. The defense team would also introduce an exhausting
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: round of delays, from appeals to out-of-town interviews to outright disappearances.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Ramirez testified in pretrial proceedings, clad in a three-piece gray
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: suit and red tie. He denied that he had spontaneously
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: told Sergeant Ed Escueda upon his August 31st arrest I
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: did it, you know, you guys got me, the stalker.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: His lawyer said that the officer had not recorded the
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: statements and they wanted them stricken. Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: who would sit for the trial, denied the motion. Sergeant
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: George Thomas would later testify at the trial that he
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: wrote down that Ramirez had said, of course I did it.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: So what? Shoot me. I deserve to die. Then he
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: had hummed a tune called Night Prowler. Other than that appearance,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Ramirez sat through most of his numerous hearings, slouching in
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: his chair, drumming his fingers on the table, and bobbing
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: his head as if listening to rock music. He seemed
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: oblivious to the seriousness of the charges. When the Hernandez's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: insisted throughout the final months of 1987 that they needed
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: more time to prepare, the trial date was moved to February.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: They considered buying more time by pursuing the Orange County
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: trial first. In November, To avoid an extra trial, one
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: murder and one felony count were dismissed. All the prosecution
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: had for the murder was the delayed statement of a
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: witness who had spotted Ramirez a block from the crime scene.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Then Judge Tynan also said that he would not allow
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Ramirez to leave the county, which meant he could not
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: be prosecuted in Orange County. The defense attorneys, seeking another ploy,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: prepared to ask for at least six separate trials to
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: avoid having cases with little good evidence become stronger by
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: association with those that had it. By January, it appeared
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: that the trial for case number A7771272 would be postponed
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: another six months because an appellate court required that the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: prosecution team supply defense attorneys with records of all crimes
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: over a period of six months in Los Angeles County.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: of a similar nature to those of Ramirez. This was
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a move by the Hernandez's to link some of those
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that Ramirez was charged with to other cases and possibly
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: other offenders. Prosecutor Phil Halpin called this an onerous burden
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: for the cops and asked the court to reconsider. Both
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: sides took it to the state Supreme Court, which would
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: not hear it. San Francisco authorities had tentatively linked Ramirez
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: to four homicides, a rape, and ten burglaries in March. Still,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: since they had no physical evidence in most of those crimes,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: they had narrowed their focus to one killing, Peter Pan,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: and one attempted murder, Pan's wife, and a burglary that
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: had yielded evidence that led to discovering Ramirez's last name.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: They were awaiting the conclusion of the L.A. trial to
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: decide on a date. In July, as the case neared
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: three years since the arrest, the Times reported that Ramirez
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: had decided against entering a plea of not guilty by
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: reason of insanity. The judge ordered jury selection to begin.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: The paper quoted the judge as estimating that this alone
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: could take six to eight months. The Hernandez's had sought
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: to have Tynan disqualified based on prejudice against their client.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: They failed, but once again, they claimed they needed more
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: time to prepare. Impatient with the defense motions, mostly to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: suppress evidence that numbered nearly 100, L.A. County Prosecutor Phil
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Halpin finalized his case and filed the charges, taking the
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: defense by surprise. He claimed he had almost 1,000 potential
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: witnesses and hundreds of thousands of pages of statements, reports,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and photographs. Admitting that it was one of the most
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: complicated criminal cases he had seen, he projected a two-year
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: period for the trial. Thus far, the case had cost
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: over $ 1 million and one witness had already died. The
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: defense asked for yet another extension. but it was time
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: to begin. On July 21, 1988, jury selection began. At
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the same time in Orange County, the jury was being
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: selected for the trial of Randy Craft, accused of killing
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: 16 young men. Judge Tynan decided that they would need
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: 12 jurors and 12 alternates, all of whom had to
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: be impartial and also willing and able to serve for
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: up to two years, a rather tall order even for
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: that county. Carpenters were hired to enlarge the jury box.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Tynan figured that to get what they needed, they would
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: have to interview as many as 2,000 people. It turned
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: out to be just short of 1,600. Alan Yockelson joined
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: Halpin for the prosecution team. Throughout the voir dire, Halpin
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and Daniel Hernandez traded so many insults that the judge
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: told them to take their macho posturing into a boxing ring.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: He called them both unprofessional. He also assigned a public defender,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Ray Clark, to assist Daniel Hernandez, since Arturo seemed inclined
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: not to be there at times. The team had not
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: yet disclosed their strategy. They still had numerous appeals pending,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: particularly one asking to overturn the judge decision who had
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: refused to remove Tynan from the case. Ramirez, often choosing
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: all black garb, began to don sunglasses as part of
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: his mysterious persona. Although he remained shaggy-haired throughout, Reinforcing his
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: rebellious reputation, he got more involved in the proceedings. On
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: August 3rd, the LA Times reported that jail employees had
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: overheard a plan by Ramirez to shoot and kill the
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: prosecutor with a gun that someone was going to slip
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: him in the courtroom. A metal detector was installed inside
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the courtroom and even the lawyers were searched. Ramirez seemed
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: surprised and no gun was ever found. Finally, after several months,
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: a jury of 12, with alternates, was seated. Then one
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: juror was dismissed for making racially biased statements about the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: death penalty. In January 1989, a state appeals court found
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: Daniel Hernandez deficient in presenting another client in an earlier
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: murder trial. Reportedly, he was not surprised by the decision.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: He also had a record of seeking delays for medical
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: conditions caused by stress. No one knew why the family
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: had hired such an inexperienced attorney. He continued to seek delays.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: By the end of the month, January 30th, the trial
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: began with Halpin's two-hour opening statement about the 13 murders
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and 30 felony charges. He intended to introduce at least
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: 400 exhibits as evidence, including fingerprints, ballistics evidence, and shoe impressions,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: one of which had been on the face of one victim.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: On that same day, the Times reported that in jail
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: in 1985, Ramirez had referred to himself as a super criminal,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: claiming he loved to kill and had murdered 20 people.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: I loved all that blood, a sheriff's deputy quoted him
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: as saying. Halpin hoped to enter these statements as evidence.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: Hernandez declined to make an opening statement at this stage.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: His strategy remained veiled. Then the case really began. While
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: some witnesses had a difficult time with memory recall four
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: years after the crimes, Others were quite certain of their
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: identification of Richard Ramirez. A few offered lengthy descriptions of
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: their ordeal at the hand of Ramirez, sometimes while he
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: leafed through a notebook of bloody crime scene photos. The defendant,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: when asked, refused to remove his sunglasses. Halpin used circumstantial
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: evidence to link Ramirez with the avia shoes that left
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: prints at crime scenes, with his appearance in the vicinity
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: of the crimes. with his shifting M.O., and with possession
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of items removed from the victims or their homes. He
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: also had fingerprints and signature evidence. On April 14th, after
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: using 137 witnesses and 521 exhibits, the prosecution rested its case.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: But then, it had become clear that the defense strategy
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: would be that the eight eyewitnesses, some of whom were survivors,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: had all mistakenly identified Ramirez. Some other guy had done
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: it all. They were granted two weeks to prepare. One
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: hurdle the defense team had to jump was the numerous pentagrams,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: left at crime scenes, in a car that bore Ramirez's fingerprint,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: on the thigh of a victim, on Ramirez, and in
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: his cell. This was a means of linking the crimes,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: mostly since Ramirez was a self-proclaimed Satanist. He had allegedly
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: forced one surviving victim to swear allegiance to Satan as
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: he assaulted her and shot her husband. Besides fingerprint and
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: impression evidence from Avia's shoes, allegedly worn by Ramirez, though
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: they could not be found, ballistics evidence showed the use
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: of four different guns, one of which was traced to
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: a man who said he had gotten it from Ramirez.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: The defense began three weeks later, on May 9th, in
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: part because on May 2nd, one of the prosecution's witnesses
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: was ordered to retestify. He had admitted to withholding information
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: while under oath as he had described jewelry and consumer
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: items linked to the victims and received from Ramirez. Halpin
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: himself had uncovered the deception and said it was not
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: damaging to the case. Hernandez withheld judgment but looked for
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: an appeal opportunity. On May 4th, the Times ran a
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: piece about Ramirez's state of mind, saying he was gloomy
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: and distraught and that he did not want to put
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: on a defense. The lawyers told the judge that this
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: was a possibility. although they had advised him otherwise. Tynan
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: granted a recess so they could talk further with their client. Ultimately,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: it was decided to go on with the trial, and
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: they brought in 38 witnesses. The defense team essentially claimed
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: that the prosecution's evidence was inconclusive or defective. They noted
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: that there were many fingerprints of the crime scenes that
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: remained unidentified and that hair and blood samples were found
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: that did not belong to the victims or Ramirez. In
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: a surprise move, they had Ramirez's father, Julian Ramirez Tapia,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: take the stand to say that Richard had been in
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: El Paso, Texas. for eight days starting around May 24, 1985.
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: A rape victim had placed him in her home on
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Memorial Day, and another attack, which had ended in murder,
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: had also occurred between May 29 and June 1. The
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: defense attorneys also found testimony to the effect that police
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: officers had covertly alerted witnesses to Ramirez's position in the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: lineup after his arrest. Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, an expert in
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: eyewitness testimony from the University of Washington, testified that the
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: stress of assault might have affected the witness's ability to
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: recall details accurately. She also pointed out that errors are
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: more likely when the attacker and victims are of different races.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Yet she conceded under cross-examination that those victims who had
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: more than a fleeting exposure to Ramirez were likely to
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: be more accurate. On May 25th, defense witness Sandra Hotchkiss
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: claimed to have been Ramirez's accomplice in numerous daytime burglaries
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: in 1985, some of which had occurred during his alleged
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: murder spree. She said that none of these incidents was violent.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: She added that he was jumpy and amateurish. She broke
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: off with him, was eventually arrested and convicted of other burglaries.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: Throughout this trial phase, several disturbances occurred, such as charts
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: falling from easels, Daniel Hernandez sweating profusely, and evidence being
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: erroneously represented. The newspapers pointed out that not once had
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: the defense attorneys claimed their client was innocent. Hernandez commented
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: in the papers that they merely wanted to prove that
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: the prosecution's case was faulty. Rebuttal witnesses for the prosecution
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: contradicted the testimony of Ramirez's father by showing that Ramirez was,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: in fact, in Los Angeles having dental work done at
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: the time that his father said he was in El Paso.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: A comparison of Ramirez's teeth to the charts left no doubt,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: though Ramirez had used an alias. A newspaper reporter, David Hancock,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: also contradicted the alibi by indicating that he had interviewed
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Ramirez Tapia in August 1985. At that time, The man
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: had claimed that he had not seen his son in
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: at least two years. Daniel Hernandez was allowed to fly
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: to Texas to seek out more witnesses who might have
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: seen Ramirez. The jury was allowed to go on vacation
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: until July 10th. Hernandez found two witnesses, but Halpin made
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: the point that if he'd gone by plane, Ramirez could
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: still have made it back in time to commit both attacks.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: One survivor had identified a piece of jewelry as hers
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: and that had admittedly been found in the El Paso
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: room of Ramirez's sister. Yet relatives of the woman murdered
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: in May 1985 had photos of appliances from her home
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: that had been in Ramirez's possession. In closing arguments that
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: lasted from July 12th to 25th, each side emphasized the
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: other side's case's weaknesses and the strengths of its own.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: Halpin pointed out that Hernandez had raised issues that he
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: never substantiated, throwing them at the jury as mere diversions.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: When he was finished, Ramirez turned to the courtroom and smirked.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: The judge took two days to instruct the jury, letting
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: them know that a handgun was missing from the evidence inventory,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: but they had a photograph of it. After nearly a year,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the jury finally started deliberations on July 26th with 8,000
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: pages of trial transcripts and 655 exhibits to consider. Within
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: a week, one juror who kept falling asleep was replaced. Then,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: on August 14th, Phyllis Singletary did not arrive. The judge
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: summoned the jury and told them they could not continue
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: without her and the court was recessed for the day.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Yet the papers reported that Ms. Singletary had been shot
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to death in her apartment and this news passed through
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: the jury and eight remaining alternatives, like wildfire. They could
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: not help but wonder if Ramirez had managed this from
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: his prison cell and if he might do something similar
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: to another of them. He certainly had plenty of black-clad
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: groupies who came to court each day to show their support.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: They were called the Charles Manson Cult of 1969. Judge
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: Tynan called them into court the next day and told
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: them that an abusive boyfriend had shot Ms. Singletary. He
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: assured them the incident was unrelated to the case. An
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: alternate was chosen to replace her, although the woman was
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: so overcome with fear she could not walk to her place.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Yet more news was forthcoming. Ms. Singletary's boyfriend used the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: same weapon with which he'd killed her, to commit suicide
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: in a hotel. He left behind his written confession. They
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: had been arguing over the Ramirez case, and he had
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: become enraged by her disapproval of Ramirez's lawyers. The defense
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: team tried hard to get a mistrial declared, which Halpern opposed.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: The case must not go down the drain, he insisted.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Debates emerged in the newspapers over the issue, with one
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: psychologist believing the shooting would unconsciously influence the jury against
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: the defendant. However, the jury foreman assured the judge that
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: they would continue. When Ramirez heard this in court, he
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: shouted that it was all f * * * ed
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: up and had to be restrained. He continued to act
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: out during the rest of the deliberations, saying that the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: trial had not been fair and he was allowed to
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: waive his right to be present in court. Whenever brief
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: hearings were needed, the proceedings were piped into his holding cell.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: On September 20th, almost two months after they had begun...
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the jury announced that they had reached a unanimous decision.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: Ramirez elected not to attend the reading. Neither did his
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: coterie of girlfriends. On each of the 43 counts, the
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: jury had voted guilty and had affirmed 19 special circumstances
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that made him eligible for the death penalty. Upon leaving
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: his cell, Ramirez flashed a devil sign, two finger for horns,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: at photographers and made a single comment, evil. The defense
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: team asked Ramirez to assist with the penalty phase because,
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: without mitigating factors, he surely would be condemned to death.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Dying doesn't scare me, he responded. I'll be in hell.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: With Satan. He told his lawyers that he would not beg. So,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: to everyone's surprise, they offered no witnesses and did not
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: call him to plead for his life. Halpin said later
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: that this decision had caught him flat-footed. Clark argued before
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: the jury that that something was wrong with Ramirez and
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: they should be compassionate, sympathy even for the devil. Halpin
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: reviewed his arguments from the trial and urged them to
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: give him his just desserts. On October 3rd, 1989, after
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: four days of deliberations, the jury said they'd voted for
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: death for Richard Ramirez. The female members were crying. Ramirez,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: who was present for all of this, was led from
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: the courtroom, smiling. Big deal, he said. Death always went
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: with the territory. Later, as he was led in shackles
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: back to the county jail, he added for reporters, I'll
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: see you in Disneyland. On November 9th, he was officially
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: sentenced to death 19 times. Ramirez chatted with his attorneys throughout. Afterward,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: he added to his dark image with his somewhat incomprehensible
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: speech to the court. You do not understand me. I
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: do not expect you to. You are not capable of it.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Legions of the night, night breed, repeat not the errors
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: of night prowler and show no mercy. I will be avenged.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Lucifer dwells within us all. He denounced the court officials
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: as liars, haters, and parasitic worms. He said that he'd
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: been misunderstood, as he was led away to eventually join
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the 262 inmates already on death row in San Quentin.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: including freeway killer Randy Kraft, sentenced a month before, he asked,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: where are the women? He then flashed his two-fingered devil
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: symbol at a busload of female prisoners who called out, killer!
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: That made him smile. To understand Richard Ramirez and his
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: passion for the devil, we need to examine more than
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: just his life. We must also look at the times.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Ramirez committed his murder spree in 1985 amid the satanic
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: panics that swept the country throughout the decade. Anxiety over
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Satanists and evil conspiracies mounted on a cultural scale, and
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: narratives told by people in therapy about ritual abuse by
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: secret satanic rings showed many common elements and no evidence.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Whole masses of people developed similar physical symptoms that were
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: primarily emotional in origin. The idea of ritual abuse was
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: heavily promoted by journalists, therapists, physicians, drug companies, and whoever
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: else might find some stake in them. Serial killers, too,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: adopted satanic robes. During that decade, Robert Berdella killed six
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: men in Missouri for satanic purposes. Antony Costa killed four
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: women in Cape Cod in rituals. Thomas Creech admitted to
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: 47 satanic sacrifices. and Larry Eiler buried four of his
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: 23 victims under a barn marked with an inverted pentagram.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Nurse Donald Harvey, suspected of the deaths of 47 patients,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: admitted to a fascination with black magic. Leonard Lake, who
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: had teamed up with Charles Ng for a series of
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: torture murders, was affiliated with a witch's coven. One killer
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: targeted homeless men, ringing his victims with a circle of salt.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: A teenager who wanted to follow the devil murdered his
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: parents in their beds. During the 1980s, a former associate
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: of John Wayne Gacy, named Robin Getcht, inspired a group
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: of three other men known as the Ripper Crew in
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: killing an estimated 18 women. They would murder a victim,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: sever her left breast with a thin wire, clean it
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: out for use for sexual gratification, and then cut it
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: into pieces to consume. Ostensibly, they were worshipping Satan and
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: eating the flesh was the form of demonic communion. The
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Night Stalker had the same devilish persuasion. He'd creep up
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: in the night, dressed in black, and enter home surreptitiously.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes he removed the eyes of his victim, as if
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: for a ritual. He bludgeoned two elderly sisters and left
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: satanic symbols on the thigh of the one who died
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: in the form of a pentagram. He also drew pentagrams
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: on the walls in lipstick. When he was arrested, Ramirez
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: reportedly said he was a minion of Satan sent to
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: commit the Dark One's dirty work. Was this admission some
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: kind of preparation for an insanity defense or something he
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: truly believed? If he believed it, did it inspire more savagery?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: Did it cause him to kill? Let's review some of
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: the influential factors of his life that have been commonly
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: linked to violent temperament development. He was born in El Paso,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: Texas in 1960, the youngest of five children. He was
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: a quiet boy, according to neighbors, with hardworking parents. However,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Richard's father had a temper and sometimes beat the kids.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: The abuse model in the form of a parent can
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: often be a bad start for a child, especially a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: boy watching his father. Add to that possible abuse from
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a male teacher, and Richard had two role models who
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: demonstrated how to use others for their own frustrating ends.
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: Richard was afraid of his father, and he would leave
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: home to hang out in a nearby cemetery, even spending
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the night. He found peace among the dead. which may
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: have been where he first developed an attraction to the macabre.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: A means for getting over one's fears is to identify
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: with what's frightening you. One way to do this is
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: to become a frightening person yourself. More than one criminal
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: has become the very thing that scared him, turning from
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: victim into a victimizer. Yet Ramirez would take this transformation
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: another step. It would become more than just frightening people.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: He would want to mutilate them, degrade them, and radiate
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: their fear in larger ripples at others. Ramirez also suffered
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: from epileptic seizures, possibly viewed as a weakness in that
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: South Texas culture, since it forced him to give up football.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: And he became something of a loner in school. He
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: was thin and girlish in appearance, so he may have
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: been ridiculed. Yet he had ambitions to become famous. He
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: wanted people to know him. He wanted to make a difference.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: He looked up to an older cousin named Mike, who
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: may have become a father substitute. Mike loved to prove
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: how tough he was, especially by fighting. As Richard hung
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: out with him day after day, absorbing Mike's life philosophies,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: he learned a new outlook. Mike had survived the rigors
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: of Vietnam, and when he returned, even more hardened and
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: covered in tattoos, he became larger than life in Richard's eyes.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: He'd come through an ordeal, and he had secrets from
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: an exotic place. That was pretty exciting, but even better
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: were the photographs that Mike liked to show Richard of
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: the butchered dead, including women. He said that killing made
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: him feel like a god, and there was nothing more powerful.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: Mike bragged that he had raped and murdered several women,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: and he had the photos to prove it. While Richard
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: may have been shocked initially, he eventually got used to
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: such sights, mostly since it was essential to show Mike
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: that he could handle it. Mike might have been testing
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: young Richard, not yet even an adolescent, but Richard was
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: up to the test. He took it in and wanted more.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: The key insight here is that Richard's exposure to Mike's
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: atrocities occurred at a time in his life when he
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: was also becoming a young man, and often when things
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: get associated with physical excitement and intrigue during early sexual development,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: they also become eroticized. Thus, they become part of the
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: mental landscape as well. Sexual fantasies can develop from the
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: associated images, and those fantasies become repetitive and more detailed
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: throughout one's life and may lay the groundwork for later acts.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: Richard supposedly had viewed Polaroids of Mike in sexual activity
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: in which the woman was a helpless victim and of
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: Mike murdering these same women. He saw how his idol
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: could do these things without a qualm, undoubtedly got excited
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: by the naked woman in sexual positions, and probably learned
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: that women could be easily used as objects for degradation.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: It was all part of being a real man, yet
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: it was also forbidden, which gave Mike's macho realm an
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: added allure. In addition to that, Mike also taught Richard
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: the art of hunting as a predator. They would go
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: out into the desert at night and observe and sneak
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: up on animals. Mike then would show Richard how to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: kill an animal with a knife or gun, and it's
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: likely they indulged in some bloody aspects of this sport.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: As Richard developed, Mike became his role model, and whatever
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Mike did without fear, Richard wanted to do. That set
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: him up for one more incident that would prove everything
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: that Mike had demonstrated thus far. One day, Mike got
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: into a fight with his wife, who wanted him to
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: get a job, and decided to end her harassment. He
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: drew a revolver and shot her. Then he told Richard
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: to leave. For this crime, Mike went to a mental institution,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: judged to have been temporarily insane. Yet right after the incident,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Richard went into the home with his father and saw
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: and smelled the blood. He felt a connection with the dead,
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: he later confessed to author Philip Carlo in The Night Stalker,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: which bordered on the mystical. Some psychologists pinpoint this killing
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: as the turning point for him. Still, it's more likely
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: that he had already become accustomed to death, especially with women,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: via the photographs Mike had shown him and by killing
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: animals up close. This incident was probably not as traumatic
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: for him as it might have been, given what he'd
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: already been exposed to. The numbness had already developed in him. Otherwise,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: we might expect that he'd have run from the apartment
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: and gone to the police or gone into a depression
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: and avoided his cousin after that. He told no one
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: that he had witnessed the crime. What may have been
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: just as instrumental in his development is that he did
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: attend church. so that to be able to worship and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: also accept his cousin's violent attitudes indicated that he'd already
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: begun to compartmentalize, to act and think differently in different contexts.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: That's the most dangerous kind of person, because it becomes
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: difficult for others to recognize the violent side and make
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: it difficult for them to stop their own violent acts.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: He may not even view them as bad. Eventually, Richard
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: discovered the Church of Satan, and that seemed to draw
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: all the threads of his temperament together in the right way.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: The themes of dominance, control, and power called to him,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: as did the idea of something sacred, even if it
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: was evil. All of this might have made him able
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: to erase his feelings of weakness. Then, when he was 18,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: he moved to California. He had nothing much to do there,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: so he stole cars, listened to music, and looked for opportunities,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: whatever they might be. He would steal without compunction and
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: buy drugs. he still sought something that might make him significant.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: Richard Ramirez had perceived in the culture around him, he
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: was not far from where teachers had been arrested in
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: 1983 at the McMartin Preschool and accused as a ring
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: of Satanists corrupting children, that people were afraid of Satan,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: and to him, that probably meant that aligning himself with
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: the Prince of Darkness would uniquely empower him. People would
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: actually fear him. So he cultivated Satanism's trappings that were
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: popular during the 1970s and 80s. Pentagrams, black clothing, demonic eyes,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: stealthy ways, and a penchant for the night. He took
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: his cue from the song Night Prowler, noting how the
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: person who made others afraid was the person in control.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: So he went on his murder spree, was caught, and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: went through a trial. He was certainly making a name
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: for himself, but it wasn't enough just to be another
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: serial killer. There were plenty of those by the 1980s,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: even a trial in Orange County at the same time.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: He perceived that he had set himself apart with his
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: satanic incarnation, and he played that up for the press.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: Ramirez flashed a pentagram at his preliminary hearing that he'd
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: had tattooed onto the palm of his hand. When he
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: was convicted, his lawyers warned him that he could get
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: the death sentence. I'll be in hell then, he said,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: with Satan. He saw the newspaper articles talking about him
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: as the devil and understood that he was a celebrity now.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: The more he flashed the pentagram or talked about serving Satan,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: the more he was quoted in the papers. He adopted
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: sunglasses to enhance his mystique. He embraced the idea that
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: he was a monster. Even during the trial, when one
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: juror was murdered, the incident made other jurors wonder if
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Ramirez had called forth demons to attack that person. They
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: were fearful that he might pick them off. He'd often
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: tried to intimidate them individually with his stares. He was
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: sentenced to death and sent to death row in San Quentin.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: When talking to police officers, he was quite curious as
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: to whether there would now be books about him, as
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: there were about Ted Bundy and Jack the Ripper. He
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: loved the idea that someone had made a movie. During
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: the 1990s, Jason Moss wrote to Ramirez as part of
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: his project to write to serial killers. and Ramirez reportedly
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: wanted him to become a Satanist. Since Ramirez's beliefs seem
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: fundamental to his desire to be notorious and unique, it's
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: difficult to know to what degree he was sincerely devoted
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: to Satan. Yet it's likely that his desire to kill
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: and how he committed his crimes had more to do
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: with his cousin Mike's psychological influence, coupled with his notion
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: that killing makes one a god.