The Night Stalker

Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez, known as Richard Ramirez, was an American serial killer, serial rapist, kidnapper, pedophile, and burglar. From June 1984 until August 1985. He used a wide variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer. He also made use of Satanic imagery. Jury selection for the trial began on July 22, 1988. At his first court appearance, Ramirez raised a hand with a pentagram drawn on it and yelled, "Hail Satan!". On August 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported that some jail employees overheard Ramirez planning to shoot the prosecutor with a gun, which Ramirez intended to have smuggled into the courtroom. Consequently, a metal detector was installed outside, and intensive searches were conducted on people entering. On September 20, 1989, Ramirez was convicted of all charges: thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries. During the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, 1989, he was sentenced to die in California's gas chamber. He stated to reporters after the death sentences, "Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.". Ramirez died of complications secondary to B-cell lymphoma at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California, on June 7, 2013. He had also been affected by "chronic substance abuse and chronic hepatitis C viral infection". At 53 years old, he had been on death row for more than 23 years.

Born on February 29, 1960 in El Paso, Texas, Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez was the fifth child of Mexican immigrants Mercedes and Julian Ramirez. His mother worked at a boot factory, where she was exposed to chemical fumes when she was pregnant with him. All his siblings had birth defects, ranging from respiratory difficulty to bone deformities. At age two, a dresser fell on Richard’s head, causing a large forehead laceration. At five he was knocked unconscious from a swing and started experiencing epileptic seizures.

Ramirez’s early years were marked by childhood trauma, abuse and addictions but he also suffered from medical conditions. Do you think he was born or made into a serial killer?

There’s always a question of whether serial killers are born or made. I believe Richard Ramirez was a sociopath as opposed to a psychopath. A psychopath is absolutely incapable of feeling any normal range of emotions, and that was the case with Ted Bundy or John Wayne Gacy, the killer clown. Ramirez, on the other hand, was prone to emotional outbursts, very spontaneous and volatile. A sociopath is developed through life experiences and manufactured in society. Also, unlike Bundy or Gacy, who planned their murders meticulously, Ramirez randomly picked homes to break into. A psychopath wouldn’t do that. A psychopath needs control.

Ramírez may have been influenced into becoming a murderer by his cousin Mike, a Special Forces Vietnam War veteran who boasted of killing and torturing his Vietnamese enemies and showed him Polaroid pictures of his victims. Ramírez was present the night Mike shot and killed his wife, and her blood splattered on Ramirez's face.

On March 17, 1985, Ramírez attacked 22-year old María Hernández outside her home. He shot her before entering her house. Inside was Dayle Okazaki, age 34, whom Ramírez immediately shot and killed. Hernández survived. The bullet had ricocheted off the keys she held in her hands, as she lifted them to protect herself. Within an hour of killing Okazaki, Ramírez struck again in Monterey Park. He jumped 30-year-old Tsai-Lian Yu and pulled her out of her car onto the road. He shot her several times and fled. A policeman found her still breathing, but she died before the ambulance arrived.

The two attacks occurring on the same day bolstered media attention, and in turn caused panic and fear among the public. The news media dubbed the attacker, who was described as having long curly hair, bulging eyes and wide-spaced rotting teeth, "The Walk-in Killer" and "The Valley Intruder".

His first murder was Mei Leung, a nine year old who he beat and raped before stabbing her to death.

He then hung her body from a pipe in April 1984.

Nine-year-old Mei Leung, a Chinese-American girl, is murdered in the basement of the San Francisco hotel where Ramirez was living. She is raped and stabbed to death before Ramirez hangs her body from a pipe. It is not initially identified as being part of his crime spree, however. In 2009, his DNA matches a sample obtained at the crime scene. In 2016, officials disclose a second suspect was likely present due to DNA evidence, but they are not publicly identified due to lack of evidence.

Ramirez’s first identified Night Stalker crime occurs. Jennie Vincow, 79, was found murdered in her Los Angeles apartment, nearly decapitated. Ramirez’s fingerprint is found on a window screen he removed to enter the apartment.

This time Ramirez would utilize the skills he’d been taught, breaking into the home of 79-year-old Jennie Vincow and stabbing her while she slept in bed. He slashed her almost to the point of decapitation.

On March 17, 1985, Richard Ramirez’s reign of terror would begin after cooling off for almost an entire year.

Jennie Vincow

He watched as 22-year-old Maria Hernandez arrived home from work in Rosemead, California. It had been a long day, and, tired, she just wanted dinner. Opening the garage with a remote and exiting the car, Maria had little time to react before Ramirez strode up to her with his .22 handgun drawn. She pleaded for her life as he pointed the weapon inches from her face. Time must have felt eternal before the explosion of noise engulfed the garage. He had shot her in the head. By a miracle, the bullet ricocheted off the keys in her hands as she tried to protect herself and, only wounded in the hand, she played dead. She was too scared to move, and thankfully Ramirez didn’t check. He stepped over what he believed to be her body and entered the condo. Inside, her roommate Dayle Yoshie Okazaki had heard the shot and taken cover behind a counter. Laying in wait, she fatally raised her head to see if the assailant was still there. He shot her dead. On the way out of the condo, a running Hernandez would run right into her assailant; he simply tucked his gun into his pants and strolled away.

Dayle Yoshie Okazaki and Tsai-Lian Yu

Not satisfied, Ramirez would travel next to Monterey Park, where he dragged Tsai-Lian Yu out of her own car just an hour later. Like with both other victims that day, he would shoot her once in the head. However, Veronica would have no miracle, and she would be dead on arrival at the local hospital.

The day of violence would immediately propel Ramirez into the spotlight. He had been sloppy, leaving behind an AC/DC baseball cap at the scene of the first killing and allowing Hernandez to escape, being able to give a detailed description to police. Described as curly-haired and with bulging eyes and rotting teeth, Ramirez was being dubbed the “The Walk-in Killer” and “The Valley Intruder” across local media. However, the coverage didn’t stop him, and just three days later, he would abduct and rape a woman before letting her go. On March 27, he would kill again.

Dayle Yoshie Okazaki

Dayle Yoshie Okazaki

On March 27, Ramírez shot Vincent Zazarra, age 64, and his wife Maxine, age 44. Mrs. Zazzara's body was mutilated with several stab wounds and a T-carving on her left breast, and her eyes were gouged out. The autopsy determined that the mutilations were post-mortem. Ramírez left footprints in the flower beds, which the police photographed and cast. This was virtually the only evidence that the police had at the time. Bullets found at the scene were matched to those found at previous attacks, and the police realized a serial killer was on the loose. Vincent and Maxine's bodies were discovered in their Whittier home by their son, Peter.

By this time, a multi-county police investigation was in operation. The law enforcement agencies worked through the month of April with no additional attacks by Ramírez. Two months after killing the Zazzara couple, Ramírez attacked a Chinese couple, Harold Wu, age 66, who was shot in the head, and his wife, Jean Wu, age 63, was punched, bound, and then violently raped. For unknown reasons, Ramírez decided to let her live. Ramírez's attacks were now in full throttle. He left behind more clues to his identity, and was named 'The Night Stalker' by the media. Survivors of his attacks provided the police with a description of a tall Hispanic and long dark haired man.

On May 29, 1985, Ramírez attacked Malvial Keller, 83, and her disabled sister, Blanche Wolfe, 80, beating each with a hammer. Ramírez attempted to rape Keller, but failed. Using lipstick, he drew pentagrams on Keller's thigh and on the wall in the bedroom. Blanche survived the attack. The next day, Ruth Wilson, 41, was bound, raped, and sodomized by Ramírez, while her 12-year old son was locked in a closet. Ramírez slashed Wilson once, and then bound her and her son together, and left.

Maxine Zazarra, age 44

Lela Kneiding, 66, and Maxson Kneiding, 68, were brutally slain in their home of 28 years by Richard Ramirez.

Glendale couple, Maxson Kneiding, 66, and his wife Lela, also 66, were shot and their corpses mutilated. Kneiding, 68, who owned a service station, and Mrs. Kneiding, 66, who worked for the security force at Robinson’s department store, had been high school friends in Iowa. They had been married 47 years. On July 20, 1985, Ramirez purchased a machete before driving a stolen Toyota to Glendale, California. He chose the home of Lela Kneiding, and her husband Maxon. He burst into the sleeping couple's bedroom and hacked them with the machete, then killed them with shots to the head from a .22 caliber handgun. He further mutilated their bodies with the machete before robbing the house of valuables. After quickly fencing the stolen items from the Kneiding residence, Ramirez drove to Sun Valley

Maxson Kneiding and his wife Lela

On August 6 Ramírez shot both Christopher Petersen, 38, and his wife, Virginia, 27, in the head. Miraculously, they both survived. On August 8 Ramírez attacked a Diamond Bar couple, fatally shooting Ahmed Zia, 35, before raping, sodomizing, and forcing Zia's wife, Suu Kyi, 28, to perform fellatio on him. The description of their attacker fit the previous ones given for "The Walk-in Killer".

Ramírez then left the Los Angeles area, and on August 17, he shot to death a 66-year-old man in San Francisco, also shooting and beating his wife. The wife survived her wounds and was able to identify her attacker as "The Walk-in Killer" from police sketches. Since "The Walk-in Killer" no longer fit the modus operandi of the attacker, the news media re-dubbed him the "Night Stalker".

The next big break in the case came on August 24, 1985, Ramírez 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. Ramírez 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. Erickson struggled to the window and saw the car Ramírez was driving. She was able to give a description of both Ramírez and his orange Toyota station wagon. A teenager 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.

A green 1976 Pontiac Grand Prix, believed to have been used by the NightStalker, is inspected by police in East Los Angeles. A man leans over the police tape, and jots something down into his notebook, at left. In background, another officer inspects the front of the car.

Armando Lojero holds up a copy of the LA Herald which identified Stalker suspect as Richard Ramirez.

Lojero, owner of the Wyvernwood store on the corner of 8th and Evergreen, said that Ramirez took

the newspaper from the stand in front of his store after seeing himself on the first page.

Rosalio Dimas is pictured here with his garden shears. He tried to hit Night Stalker

Richard Ramirez as the suspect ran through his yard.

A photograph of two of the "heroes" of the Night Stalker capture. Jose Burgoin, at left, pursued Ramirez

after he tried to steal the Mustang of Faustino Pinon, right.

Joseph Romero III, sitting on his new Yamaha ATV, is lauded at Orange County Sheriff's

headquarters for giving information that helped crack the Night Stalker case. The boy

provided information on the Toyota the Night Stalker used in Mission Viejo.

The prints belonged to one Richard Muñoz Ramírez, 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.

Two days later, his mugshots were broadcast on national television and printed on the cover of every major newspaper in California. The next day Ramírez was identified, surrounded, and severely beaten by an angry mob in East Los Angeles as he was trying to steal a car. Police had to break up the mob to prevent them from killing Ramírez.

On August 30, 1985, Ramirez took a bus to Tucson, Arizona, to visit his brother, unaware that he had become the lead story in virtually every major newspaper and television news program across California. After failing to meet his brother due to him not being home, Ramirez returned to Los Angeles early on the morning of August 31. He walked past police officers, who were staking out the bus terminal in hopes of catching the killer should he attempt to flee on an outbound bus, and into a convenience store in East Los Angeles.

After noticing a group of elderly Hispanic women fearfully identifying him as "el matador" (literally "the killer" in Spanish), Ramirez saw his face on the front page of the newspaper La Opinion with a headline calling him "Invasor Nocturno" (Night Invader) and fled the store in a panic. After running across the Santa Ana Freeway (I-5), he attempted to carjack an unlocked Ford Mustang but was pulled out by angry resident, Faustino Pinon. Ramirez ran across the street and attempted to take car keys from Angelina De La Torre. The woman's husband, Manuel De La Torre, witnessed the attempt and struck Ramirez over the head with a fence post in the pursuit. A group of over ten residents formed and chased Ramirez down the Hubbard Street in Boyle Heights. The group of citizens forced and held Ramirez down and relentlessly beat him. At around 8am, police were called over a disturbance in the area with few details with indications of a fight. Police quickly arrived at the 3700 block of Hubbard and found that Ramirez was severely beaten, unarmed and took him into custody. The crowd grew to several hundred people and was becoming unruly toward Ramirez, and responding officer Andy Ramirez stayed behind while officer Jim Kaiser drove Ramirez to the Hollenbeck police station.

9/4/1985-California: Richard Ramirez, arrested as "Night Stalker," accused mass murderer.

Los Angeles, California: Richard Ramirez, the man police have arrested as the alleged Night Stalker is surrounded by police officers as he walks out of a police station. The man police believe responsible for 16 murders and two dozen other brutal assaults was captured by angry citizens when he attempted to steal a car.

Richard Ramirez, accused of being the serial killer called the "Night Stalker", appears in court wearing prison clothes. Los Angeles, May 6, 1986. Richard Ramirez during the reading of his sentencing on October 4, 1989, which was death on all counts.

Jury selection for the case started on July 22, 1988, and on September 20, 1989, he was found guilty of 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries. During the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, 1989, he was sentenced to die in California's gas chamber. The trial of Richard Ramírez was one of the most difficult and longest criminal trials in American history. Nearly 1,600 prospective jurors were interviewed. More than one hundred witnesses testified, and while a number of witnesses had a difficult time recalling certain facts four years after the crimes, others were quite certain of the identity of Richard Ramírez.

On August 3, 1988 the Los Angeles Times reported that some jail employees overheard Ramírez planning to shoot the prosecutor with a gun, which Ramírez intended to have smuggled into the courtroom. Consequently, a metal detector was installed outside of the courtroom and intensive searches were conducted on people entering. On August 14, the trial was interrupted because one of the jurors, Phyllis Singletary, did not arrive to the courtroom. Later that day she was found shot to death in her apartment. The jury was terrified; they could not help but wonder if Ramírez had somehow directed this event from inside his prison cell, and if he could reach other jury members. However, Ramírez was not responsible for Singletary's death; she had been shot and killed by her boyfriend, who later killed himself with the same weapon in a hotel. The alternative juror who replaced Singletary was too frightened to return to her home.

By the time of the trial, Ramírez had fans who were writing him letters and paying him visits. Since 1985, freelance magazine editor Doreen Lioy wrote him nearly 75 letters during his incarceration. In 1988 he proposed to her, and on October 3, 1996, they were married in California's San Quentin State Prison. Lioy has stated that she will commit suicide when Ramírez is executed.

Victims

The following is a list of Richard Ramirez's victims, from the book Night Stalker by Clifforord L. Linedecker.

· June 28, 1984---Jennie Vincow, 79, Glassell Park. Her throat was slashed. Murder, Burglary.

· March 17, 1985--Dayle Okazaki, 34, and Maria Hernandez, 20, Rosemead. Dayle was shot to death. Murder, attempted murder, robbery.

· March 17, 1985--Veronica Yu, 30, Monterey Park. Drug from her car and shot. Murder.

· March 27, 1985--Vincent Zazzara, 64 and his wife Macine, 44, Whittier. Stabbed and mutilated. Two counts of murder, sexual charges.

· May 14, 1985----Bill Doi, 66, Monterey Park. Shot to death. Murder, robbery, sexual charges.

· May 30, 1985----Carol Kyle, 41, Burbank. Rape, Sodomy, oral copulation, burglary. Burglary, sex charges, robbery.

· June 1, 1985----Mable "Ma Bell" Bell, 83, and sister, Florence "Nettie" Lang, 80, Monrovia. Keller was bludgeoned to death, and satanic symbol were screwed in various places. Murder, attempted murder, robbery.

· July 2, 1985----Mary Louise Cannon, 75, Arcadia. Beaten and throat slashed. Murder, burglary.

· July 5, 1985----Whitney Bennett, 16, Sierra Madre. Attempted murder, burglary.

· July 7, 1985----Joyce Lucille Nelson, 61, Monterey Park. Beaten to death. Murder, burglary.

· July 7, 1985----Sophie Dickman, 63, Monterey Park. Raped and sodomized. Burglary, robbery, sex charges.

· July 20, 1985---Max, 68, and Lela Kneiding, 66, Glendale. Both shot to death. two counts of murder, robbery.

· July 20, 1985---Chainarong Khovananth, 32, Sun Valley. Shot to death...his son and wife were both sodomized. Murder, robbery, burglary, sex offenses.

· August 8, 1985--Elyas Abowath, 35, Diamond Bar. Shot while sleeping. Murder, robbery, burglary, rape

Richard Ramirez, the demonic serial killer known as the Night Stalker who left satanic signs at murder scenes and mutilated victims' bodies during a reign of terror in the 1980s, died early Friday in a hospital, a prison official said. Ramirez, 53, had been taken from San Quentin's death row to a hospital where authorities said he died of liver failure. Ramirez died of complications secondary to B-cell lymphoma at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California, on June 7, 2013. He had also been affected by "chronic substance abuse and chronic hepatitis C viral infection".

See Also