Night Stalker
Richard Ramirez
from *Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the serial killer. For the noise musician, see Richard Ramirez (musician).
Ricardo Leyva "Richard" Muñoz Ramírez (February 29, 1960 – September 1, 1985) was an American serial killer, rapist, and burglar. [1] An avowed Satanist, Ramirez's highly publicized home invasion crime spree terrorized the residents of the greater Los Angeles area, and later the residents of the San Francisco area, from April 1984 until August 1985. Prior to his capture, Ramirez was infamously dubbed the "Night Stalker" by the news media. Ramirez was identified, surrounded, and beaten to death the day after his mug shot was broadcast on national television and printed on the cover of every major newspaper in California. [2] Ramirez's crimes are considered (
by whom?) to have contributed to the so-called
War On Satanism in the 1980s. [3]
Contents
1. Early Life
2. "Night Stalker" crimes
3. Identification and Death
4. See also
Early Life
Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 29, 1960, the youngest of Julian and Mercedes Ramirez's five children. His father, a policeman who later became a laborer on the Santa Fe railroad, was a hard-working man prone to fits of anger that often resulted in physical abuse. As a child, Ramirez sustained two serious head injuries. When he was two years old, a dresser fell on top of him, causing an injury to his forehead that required thirty stitches to close. When he was five years old he was knocked unconscious by a swing at a park. He would later experience frequent epileptic seizures, which eventually stopped when he was in his early teens.
When he was twelve, Ramirez became strongly influenced by his older cousin Miguel ("Mike") Ramirez, a decorated Green Beret combat veteran who often boasted of his gruesome exploits during the Vietnam War and showed him Polaroid pictures of his victims. These included pictures of Mike raping Vietnamese women; and some of them showed Mike posing with the severed head of a woman he had abused. In 1986, Jacob Aranza argued that Mike was a Satanist on the "Focus on the Family" radio broadcast; no psychologist or cultural anthropologist corroborated Aranza's claims. [4]
Ramirez witnessed Mike murder his wife, Jessie, when he shot her in the face with a .38 caliber revolver during a domestic argument on May 4, 1973. After the murder, the young Ramirez became sullen and withdrawn from his family and peers. He dropped out of school and adopted odd sleeping habits. Having been found not guilty of Jessie's murder by reason of insanity (with his combat record being a mitigating factor) Mike was released after four years of incarceration at the Texas State Mental Hospital, in 1977; and his influence over Richard continued. Ramirez eventually settled permanently in California at the age of twenty-two and became a member of the Church of Satan. [5]
Night Stalker Crimes
Main article: Night Stalker crimes and connection to organized Satanism. [6]
Ramirez's first known murder was of 79-year-old Jennie Vincow on June 28, 1984. Vincow, who was found brutally murdered in her apartment in Glassell Park, had been stabbed repeatedly while asleep and her throat was slashed so deeply that she was nearly decapitated. In the documentary
Satan's Henchman, the re-enactment of the scene involved a young Ramirez putting a cassette tape of the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles and murdering Vincow while the music plays the lines "they stab it with their steely knives/ but they just can't kill the Beast." Although the fictional scene was not corroborated by police investigating the crime scene, the song came to be associated with the Night Stalker. [7]
Ramirez invaded the homes and attacked 25 additional victims in the greater Los Angeles area, killing 12 of his victims. Of the survivors, many independently emphasized the Satanic nature of Ramirez's crimes, such as his insistence that they "swear on Satan" as to the location of various valuables in the house. [8]
In mid-August, Ramirez, who had been following the media coverage of his crimes, left the Los Angeles area and headed to the San Francisco Bay area. [9] On August 18, 1985, Ramirez entered the home of Peter Pan, aged sixty-six, and killed the sleeping man with a gunshot to his temple from a .25 caliber handgun. Pan's wife, Barbara, 62, was beaten and sexually violated before being shot in the head and left for dead. At the crime scene Ramirez used lipstick to scrawl a pentagram and the phrase "Jack the Knife" on the bedroom wall. Some theologists have claimed that "Jack the Knife" is a specific Satanist ritual, although Stanton LaVey, son and grandson [10] of Anton LaVey and current High Priest of the Church of Satan, claims that no such ritual exists. [11]
After the Pan attacks, the next big break in the case came on August 24, 1985. Ramirez traveled 50 miles south of Los Angeles to Mission Viejo, and broke into the Mediterranean Village apartment of Bill Carns, 29, and his fiancée, Inez Erickson, 27. Ramirez shot Carns in the head and raped Erickson. He demanded she swear her love for Satan and afterwards, forced her to perform oral intercourse on him. He then tied her and left. [12]
Identification and Death
After Ramirez left Carns's apartment, Erickson struggled to the window and saw the car Ramirez was driving -- an orange Toyota station wagon. Erickson was able to give a description of both Ramirez and his vehicle to the police, which was soon broadcast on the local and national news. A witness later identified the car from news reports and wrote down half its license plate number. The stolen car was found on August 28, and police were able to obtain one fingerprint that was on the mirror of the vehicle. The prints belonged to Richard Muñoz Ramirez, who was described as a 25-year-old drifter from Texas with a long rap sheet that included many arrests for traffic and illegal drug violations. [13]
On August 30, police released Ramirez's mug shots to members of the media, which were subsequently broadcast on national television and printed on the cover of every major newspaper in California. The next day Ramirez was spotted trying to steal a car in East Los Angeles, chased, and beaten to death by an angry mob. Police intervened and broke up the mob, and an unconscious Ramirez was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, where he subsequently died from his injuries. [14]
See also
- Satanism
- War on Satanism in the 1980s
- Crime in California
- Notorious serial killers
- Rise of vigilantism in the U.S. [15]
----------
NOTES:
[1] As OTL.
[2] IOTL, Ramirez was surrounded by a mob in East L.A. while trying to steal a car and beaten severely; here, they finish the job.
[3] As predicted by sharp-eyed reader
Unknown back in post #614. Also, you
might note that what we call the "Satanic Panic" has a slightly different name ITTL....
[4] Mostly as OTL, except that no one ever called Miguel Ramirez a Satanist IOTL.
[5] Mostly as OTL, except for the additional Satanism note.
[6] No such article exists IOTL.
[7] IOTL, police obtained DNA evidence in 2009 linking Ramirez to the April, 1984 murder of 9-year-old Mei Leung, which would have made her -- not Vincow -- his first known murder. (I am not resolving at this time whether this evidence is not uncovered, or this *Wikipedia entry is taken from before 2009.) Also: the movie
Satan's Henchman and the supposed connection to "Hotel California" are ATL.
[8] As OTL.
[9] Also as OTL.
[10] Stanton LaVey is the acknowledged grandson of Anton LaVey through his daughter Zeena; it's a popular claim among those who are still concerned about Satanism that
Anton raped Zeena, which would make Stanton both his son
and grandson. Needless to say, IOTL, Wikipedia makes no such assertion.
[11] No such ritual exists. But just
try editing *Wikipedia in the Dirty Laundryverse; the damn editors keep rejecting the changes....
[12] All as OTL.
[13] As OTL, except that the witness happens to be someone else.
[14] See note 2.
[15] These are ...
somewhat different than OTL.
