Post by cruororism on Oct 10, 2003 9:13:56 GMT
Richard Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 28, 1960. He was the youngest of seven siblings in a working-class Catholic family. All of his friends remember him as a "loner", even when he was a little boy in the neighborhood. He wouldn't take part in any gang activity, but he was sniffing glue and smoking marijuana by the time the eighth grade came rolling around. He ended dropping out of high school, much to his family's dismay. Soon after, he was arrested twice on drug possession charges. At that time he was fed up and full of rage. He met a lady friend who said that she was going to California. With nothing to loose or leave behind, he followed.
Things did not get any better for him in CA. As a matter of fact, they only became worse, and his problems multiplied. He began a cocaine habit and was subsisting on a diet of junk food only. His teeth began to rot away and he was often sleeping outdoors. His belongings fit into a black backpack. His sole livelihood was car theft during 1982--83. He even wound up in LA County Jail.
His life was in such despair, that it was then that he decided to kill, to hunt other human beings. Namley the middle, to upper middle class.
Los Angeles, in 1984-85, was under a terrible heat wave. Air conditioners didn't do the job, and people were leaving doors cracked open and open windows. They felt that they had nothing to fear----they lived in classy suburbs. Ramirez took advantage of this heat wave. He also took advantage of the people's sense of security. Ramirez would enter through an open window or door in the middle of the sleeping night. Armed with a .22 pistol and a knife, he would first turn his attention to the man, shooting or stabbing him to death. Then, the women. He would rape, sodomize, beat, carve them up, and leave them for dead. His attention would them go to the children ( if there were any ). He would rape them, and sometimes kidnapp them, only to release them miles from home. They would be left to wander in unknown territory scared, and searching for help.
Ramirez was also an avid Satanist. He would often leave Satanic markings in the victim's homes, like pentagrams with lipstick. On one occasion, he carved out an elderly woman's eyes and took them as trophies.
Sargeant Frank Salerno ( who helped catch the Hillside Stranglers ) was assigned to the case. He was at a dead end because the Night Stalker left no clues. Only a tennis shoe print, which Salerno quickly had analyzed. It turned out to be a shoe made by AVIA, and there were only 1,300 made. It gave them a place to start. Their big break came when an informant told them that he knew the Stalker. "his name is Rick", he said. They, at first dismissed it a bogus. But when they found a print off of one of the stolen cars the Stalker used, it was the print of one Richard Ramirez, a petty crook. Salerno and the Night Stalker Task Force enlisted the media's help, and put Ramirez's photo on the front page in hopes that someone would turn him in. It worked.
On August 8, 1985 Richard Ramirez breaks into the home of Elyas Abowath in Diamond Bar. The 35 year old is shot dead. His wife Sakina is raped. The couple's 3 year old child is tied up but escapes injury. The killing is the second last and it is after this one that the public is told that it is in fact one killer responsible for the recent spate of murders. The press dubs the killer "The Night Stalker".
On a Saturday morning, August 1985, in a well-heeled LA suburb, a man was seen trying to open the doors of locked cars. He then tried to pull a woman out of her own car. The neighbours saw him and knew it was the Stalker. They mobbed him, beating him without mercy. Finally the police showed up and the terror of the Night Stalker was over.
Throughout his trial, he was sometimes sullen. Other times he would burst out. He would put his fingers on the sides of his head ( like horns ) and intone "Evil, Evil". He was convicted of twelve first-degree murders, one second-degree murder, and thirty counts of rape / burglary. When asked to address the court, he said, "You maggots make me sick. Lucifer dwells w/in us all. I will be avenged."
Ramirez was sentenced to death. He now dwells on Death Row. California hasn't executed anyone since 1967, so he will probably remain there for many years to come.
· Feb 28, 1960 - Ricardo Ramirez got born in El Paso, Texas as the fifth child of Julian and Mercedes Ramirez. Later in life he Americanized his name in Richard.
· June 28, 1984 - Richard broke into a house and raped then killed a 79-year-old woman, Jennie Vincow, in a suburb of Los Angeles.
· Feb 25, 1985 - Richard abducts a six-year-old Montebello girl, from a bus stop near her school and carried her away in a laundry bag, he sexually abused her and leaves her behind in lake city. (Alive)
· March 11, 1985 - He kidnapped a nine-year-old girl from her bedroom in Monterey Park, he raped her and dumped her in Elysian Park. (Alive)
· March 17, 1985 - He shot 34-year-old Dayle Okazaki to death in her Rosemead condominium, wounding her roommate Maria Hernandez before he fled. Hernandez provided police with their first description of a long-faced intruder, notable for his curly hair, bulging eyes, and wide-spaced, rotting teeth.
· March 17, 1985 - Another victim on March 17 was 30-year-old Tsa Lian Yu, (a.k.a. Veronica) ambushed near her home in Monterey Park, dragged from her car and shot several times. She was pronounced dead the following day. The press dub Ramiez as 'The Valley Intruder'.
· March 20, 1985 - He abducts an Eagle Rock girl from her home, after sexually abusing her he let her go.
· March 27, 1985 - 64-year-old Vincent Zazzara is beaten to death in his home. Zazzara's wife, 44-year-old Maxine, was fatally stabbed in the same attack, her eyes carved out and carried from the house. The Zazzaras had been dead two days before their bodies were discovered by their son.
· May 14, 1985 - 65-year-old William Doi was shot in the head by a man who invaded his home, in Monterey Park. Dying, he staggered to the telephone and dialed an emergency number before he collapsed, thus saving his wife from a lethal assault by the Stalker.
· May 29, 1985 - 84-year-old Mabel Bell and her invalid sister, 81-year-old Florence Lang, were savagely beaten in their Monrovia home. The Stalker paused to ink Satanic pentagrams on Bell's body, drawing more on the walls before he departed. Found by a gardener on June 2, Lang would survive her injuries, but Mable Bell was pronounced dead on July 15, 1985.
· June 27, 1985 - 32-year-old Patty Higgins was killed in her home at Arcadia, her throat slashed.
· July 2, 1985 - 77-year-old Mary Cannon was slain in identical style as Patty Higgin, less than two miles away.
· July 7, 1985 - 61-year-old Joyce Nelson was beaten to death at her home, in Monterey Park.
· July 20, 1985 - The killer struck twice on July 20, first invading a Sun Valley home where he killed 32-year-old Chainarong Khovanath, then beat and raped his wife. Not content with that he took their eight-year son into the next room with a bottle of baby oil. Mrs. Khovanath was forced to listen as Ramirez raped him before escaping with $30,000 worth of cash and jewelry. A short time later, Max Kneiding, 69, and his wife Lela, 66, were shot to death in their home, in Glendale.
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