﻿Few serial killers have captured notoriety and media fame like Richard Ramirez,
also known as The Night Stalker. Active between 1984 and 1989, Richard Ramiriez was a brutal
killer, rapist, and burglar whose crimes were only heightened by the Satanic Panic of the 80’s.
Today we’re taking a close look at the case of Richard Ramirez and diving into how some killers
are made, while others are born killers. Ricardo “Richard” Leyva Muñoz Ramírez was born
February 29th, 1960, to Julián and Mercedes Ramirez, and was the youngest of their five
kids in El Paso, Texas. His father was a former policeman and worked long hours as a laborer in
the Santa Fe railway and was known to have a short temper and violent outbursts that often lead to
abuse. Richard was also accident prone himself, and sustained major head injuries when he was very
young and still developing mentally, including a dresser falling on him and cutting open his head,
and a swing hitting him so hard that he was knocked out, and these traumas would also cause
Richard to suffer from severe epilepsy. These two events in retrospective are what lead Psychiatrist
Michael H. Stone to describe Richard as a “made” psychopath instead of a “born” psychopath.
Stone stated that Richard’s Schizoid Personality Disorder, paired with the “...temporal lobe
epilepsy, aggressivity, and hypersexuality…” he developed later from his childhood head traumas
are largely responsible for Richard’s ability to be a ruthless and remorseless serial killer.
However, these wouldn’t be the only influence on RIchard’s disturbing tendencies.
When he was around 12 years old, Richard began spending lots of time with his older
cousin Miguel. Miguel Ramirez was a Green Beret and a veteran of the Vietnam War,
who often boasted about his gruesome war exploits with his younger cousin.
Miguel even went so far as to show Richard photos of people he had murdered and women he had raped,
with several photos showing Miguel holding up the severed head of a woman he had raped
and decapitated. Richard began to distance himself from his family,
going so far as to sleep in cemeteries to avoid his father’s abuse, and began to grow even closer
with his cousin. Miguel strengthened the bond between him and Richard when he went so far as
to teach his younger cousin Green Beret military tactics that included stealth and kill techniques.
On May 4th, Miquel shot his wife Jessie with a .38 caliber revolver after an argument right
in front of Richard who was thirteen at the time. Miguel was found not guilty for the murder of his
wife by reason of insanity, and was released after serving only four years in a mental insitutuion.
Reportedly, witnessing this event caused Richard to withdraw from everyone around him, including
friends and family. He was sent to live with his older sister Ruth, but this would not have any
positive impact on the boy. Ruth’s husband was an obsessive peeping tom, and would even take
Richard out with him on his night time excursions. While out the two would peer into the windows of
unsuspecting women in the hopes of finding them undressing. This was also the same time
that Richard would start taking LSD and began his intense lifelong fascination with Satanism.
As a teenager Richard picked up a job at a Holiday Inn while still attending school. It was here that
he began to burgle, using the skills he had been taught by Miguel, and would use his employee key
to break into rooms and rob people while they slept. One night a man returned to his room and
caught Richard attempting to rape his wife. The man brutally beat Richard up, however since the
couple was from out of town and didn’t want to return to testify against Richard, the charges
were dropped. Regardless of the charges being dropped, Richard was of course instantly fired.
Not long after this Richard dropped out of high school, and in 1982, at the age of 22,
decided to move out to California. The Night Stalker would be born April 10th,
1984, when Richard would kill 9 year old Mei Leung in the basement of the hotel he was staying at.
He gruesomely beat and raped the girl before stabbing her to death and hanging her body
carelessly from a pipe. Despite this being the first known killing Richard was involved with,
it wasn’t actually credited to him until 2009, some 20 years after his arrest and incarceration.
His next killing was not long after, on June 28th, 1984, when he broke into the apartment of 79 year
old Jennie Vicow and brutally stabbed her to death. After she died Richard slit her throat
so intensely that her head was nearly separated from her body. After Richard was discovered to be
The Night Stalker he would be tied back to this case via a fingerprint he left when removing a
mesh screen from her window to gain access to the apartment. Richard’s next known crimes wouldn’t
be committed until March 17th of the following year, when he brutally attacked Maria Hernandez
after she entered her garage. He aimed and shot Maria in the face, but by some crazy miracle
she was able to survive when she raised her hands to protect her face and the bullet ricocheted
off of the keys in her hand. Her roommate, on the other hand, was not so lucky. After hearing
the gunshot Dayle Okazaki, Maria’s roommate, ducked behind a counter in their kitchen,
but when she raised her head to see where Richard was he shot her once in the forehead, killing her
instantly. His bloodthirst not quite sated, less than an hour after these crimes Richard fled to
Monterey Park where he yanked a woman out of her car and shot her twice with a .22 Caliber handgun.
Although she survived the attack initially, the woman, 30 year old Tsai-Lian “Veronica” Yu, died
upon arrival at a hospital. With two murders and one near miss in one night, the media was ablaze
with the prospects of a new serial killer on the loose in California. With the loose description
they were able to get from Maria Hernandez, the only one of Richard’s victims to survive
up to this point” the media deemed her attacker “The Walk-In Killer” and “The Valley Intruder”,
and warned the public that he had curly hair with bulging eyes and wide-spaced rotten teeth.
Just ten days after this crime spree, Richard broke into the home of Vincent and Maxine Zazzara.
64 year old Vncent was killed with a shot to the head from a .22 caliber handgun,
and Maxine was beaten and bound while Richard robbed the house. While Richard was distracted,
Maxine managed to escape and grab a shotgun that she aimed at Richard, but tragically the gun was
unloaded. Richard was infuriated and shot her three times until she died, and then horribly
mutilated her body including gouging her eyes out, placing them in a box, and taking them with him.
An unaware Richard also left behind a distinct footprint from a pair of Avia sneakers which the
Police were able to collect. This footprint as well as some left behind bullets matched
others at Richard’s other crime scenes and the police were able to determine with some certainty
that there was a new serial killer afoot. Richard continued to kill unabashedly into 1895. He would
frequently tie his victim’s up and threaten them into telling him where their valuables were,
while also coming up with a variety of ways to get them to swear to Satan. He also used lipstick he
could find to draw pentagrams on walls and bodies which only added fuel to the fire of Satanic Panic
at the time. Richard would also occasionally leave his victims alive. In one particularly
interesting case he was bludgeoning a 16 year old girl with a tire iron while she slept
before he began choking her with a cable. While choking her the cable sparked and the girl began
breathing again. Richard viewed this as a sign of divine intervention from Jesus Christ himself.
Towards the end of 1985 Richard moved his crimes to San Francisco, and on August 18th he broke
into the home of Peter and Barbara Pan. Peter was shot while sleeping, and Barabra was beaten and
assaulted before being shot in the head. Ramirez then used Barbara’s lipstick to not only draw a
pentagram but to also write “Jack the Knife” on their bedroom wall. Richard once again left a
footprint from Avia sneakers, this time distinct enough for Officers to identify the size and make.
They were able to determine that only 6 Avia sneakers existed in Richard’s size, making it
a lot easier to track down the buyers which would have led police right to Riichard. Unfortunately,
the Mayor at the time, Diane Feinstein, mentioned this information at a press conference,
much to the police’s chagrin. The detectives knew that Richard would be keeping up with the media
coverage of his crimes and this slipup would give him more than enough time to get rid of
the shoes before police could track him, which he absolutely did, dumping the shoes off the
Golden gate bridge that very night. Luckily, Richard’s reign of terror would still
come to an end soon after. On August 24th, Ramirez attempted to break into the Romero home but fled
when the Romero’s son heard Richard lurking and woke up his family. James, the son in question,
was able to rush to the window and get the license plate number off of Richard’s stolen car.
Following this Richard went to another nearby home and broke in,
shooting a man named Bill Carns three times in the head before introducing himself as the Night
Stalker to Bill’s fiance Inez. He then beat and raped her and told her to “ tell them the
night stalker was here” before fleeing the home. Luckily both Bill and Inez were able to survive,
and Inez’s information paired with the license plate number were key in the downfall of Richard.
Police were able to get a solid fingerprint from the stolen car once they found it,
and were able to trace it back to one Richard Ramirez, who had previously been brought up
on traffic and drug violations. His picture was posted everywhere in California, however,
Richard was not aware of this as he had been out of town visiting his cousin. On August 31, 1985,
Richard returned to Los Angeles early in the morning and overheard some elderly women referring
to him as “the killer”. This was when he noticed his photo plastered on every screen and newspaper
and tried to make a break for it, but a group of civilians chased him down and held him until
police could arrive, with one man even battering Richard over the head with a metal bar.
Richard’s trial was nothing if not sensational, starting with Richard drawing a pentagram on
his hand and yelling “Hail Satan”, and also including a juror who was murdered by her
boyfriend and had to be replaced. Richard’s trials were also flocked by young girls
who were obsessed with Richard and seeking a romantic relationship with him. On September 20th,
1989 Richard Ramirez was convicted on 13 counts of murder, 5 counts of attempted murder, 11 counts
of sexual assault, and 14 counts of burglary, and he was sentenced to death by gas chamber,
however Richard would end up dying at age 53 of B-Cell Lymphoma in 2013
due to slow downs with appeals. Thankfully, this is the end of the story of The Night Stalker.
Comment your thoughts down below and let us know any other stories you’d like us to cover.
Like and subscribe if you want to see more videos like this one and we’ll see you in the next one.