Halloween Feature Story: Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez

Halloween Feature Story: Richard The Night Stalker Ramirez

Caitlyn Anderson

Now that it is October, it’s time to get into the Halloween Spirit! Today I am going to be talking about the famous serial killer and burglar Richard Ramirez also known as ‘The Night Stalker.’ (1984-1985)  He was born on February 29th, 1960 in El Paso, Texas. He died on June 7th, 2013 in Kentfield, California. He died due to the B-Cell Lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer. 

He got married to a woman named Doreen Lioy in the year of 1996. They stayed married until Ramirez died of natural cases while on death row. Through each trial, Lioy would stay by his side and never once believed he was guilty of the crimes he committed. When he was convicted, Lioy would send him countless love letters and visit him at least four times a week. 

Ramirez started his spree exactly 14 months before he was sentenced to jail. In those fourteen months, he killed a total of thirteen people, attempted to kill five more, and physically and sexually assaulted countless others in the Southern California and the San Francisco area. He also was charged with petty theft and burglary. He murders only went on for about one year. 

However, he started on his path of crime when he was thirteen years old. His dad was none of the good father figure Ramirez needed. He was quite abusive and Ramirez suffered from two head surgeries after he went through frequent epileptic seizures. To escape his father, he went to go spend lots of time with his older cousin Miguel. Miguel was not much better than his father. He would tell him about his way of torturing women and even showed him gruesome pictures of women. Miguel later then shot his wife right in front of  Ramirez. His affected him tremendously and he began to obtain more of an interest. He began using LSD and began believing in satanism and performing satanic rituals. 

For this fourteen months, people in the Los Angeles and San Francisco area went to sleep at night fearing for their lives. After he committed all of his awful crimes, a detailed sketch from one of his victims was put out all over the U.S, and was in every newspaper and news channel. He was everywhere. However, Ramirez was blind to it. He didn’t have a clue that he was wanted and a resemblance of his face was all throughout America.

He was soon identified on the streets in Los Angeles when he was almost beaten to death by a mob of people. He was later convicted of 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. It was the most expensive trial in the state of California. He never once felt remorse and if fact, Ramirez’s last words were: “I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all. That’s it.”