Richard Ramirez < background="http://www.fortunecity.com/homebuilder/wallpapers/0021.jpg" TEXT= "#ffffff" LINK= "#ffff00" VLINK= "#808000" ALINK= "#ffff00" > Richard Ramirez

Richard Ramirez, The Night Stalker SATAN'S OWN It all began the early morning of June 28, 1984, in the small suburban community of Glassel Park. It wasn't designed to be what it became: the first in a series of murders of escalating brutality that threw the entire Los Angeles area into complete panic. It was a burglary, but the burglar, strung out on cocaine and secure in the belief that Satan would protect him, was a time bomb ready to explode. He parked his car down the street and walked to the two-story apartment building. For no particular reason, he selected the home of seventy-nine-year-old Jennie Vincow. It was such a warm night that she had the window of her first floor apartment open. The gloved hands carefully removed the screen and opened the window wider. Quiet as a cat, he got into the apartment and moved toward the bedroom. Soundlessly, he looked through the drawers, but found nothing that he could turn into cash for drugs or sex. He was furious that the old woman had nothing of value for him to steal. He would take something anyway, something very precious to Jennie -- her life. The thought of it excited him, so he took out his hunting knife and plunged it into the breast of the sleeping woman. She screamed and tried to fight him off, but he kept stabbing her. Finally, with one hand over her mouth, he slit her throat from ear to ear, nearly decapitating her. He was so energized by the thrill that he stabbed her three more times in the chest. The next afternoon, Jennie Vincow's son went to take her a treat and found her horribly murdered. His call to LAPD brought two seasoned homicide detectives, Jesse Castillo and Mike Wynn. The only clues they had to go on were four reasonably good fingerprints to match against any suspect they found. Manual comparison of fingerprints with the millions of prints already on file at LAPD would have taken years to complete. Like many homicides, there was a flurry of activity as potential suspects were interviewed and eliminated one by one. Eventually, the activity on the case slowed to a crawl. A number of months later, the Night Stalker came back to life on the evening of March 17, 1985. Maria Hernandez, a pretty dark-haired woman, drove her car into the parking garage of her new Rosemead condominium. She shared the condo with another very attractive woman, thirty-five-year-old Dayle Okazaki, a traffic supervisor for L.A. County. She pushed the button to shut the garage door and located her building key. The lights in the garage stayed on only for a short time after the garage door button was pushed. Suddenly she was looking at the barrel of a .22-caliber revolver. She screamed and begged him not to shoot her, but he kept walking toward her. The garage lights automatically went out as they were programmed to do, leaving Maria alone with a gun pointed at her head. She reflexively raised her hand to protect her face. The gun fired and she fell down, but luck was with her and the keys in her hand deflected the bullet. She played dead while he took her keys and entered her condominium. Dayle, hearing the shot and someone coming into the apartment ducked down beneath the kitchen counter and waited. A few minutes later, she peeked and he shot her right in the forehead. Maria saw him, all dressed in black, escaping down the front walkway. He happened to see her and pointed the gun at her again. She begged him not to shoot her again and she was lucky a second time. He ran back to his stolen car and left her alive. Maria ran back in her house and tried to revive her roommate Dayle. Then she called 911 and two L.A. County sheriff's deputies came her house, confirming that Dayle was dead. The murder of Dayle Okazaki was not enough for one night. He drove over to Monterey Park and sighted a pretty young woman of Chinese descent. Veronica Yu noticed that a man in a Toyota was following her. She pulled her car over and stopped so that she could get a better look at him. He passed her by, but then she began to follow him. He stopped the car and walked over to hers, unaware that Jorge Gallegos and his girlfriend Edith Alcaaz were watching from their vehicle down the street. She demanded to know why he was following her and threatened to call the police with his license plate number. He grabbed her by the shoulders and tried to pull her out of the window of the car. Failing that, he got into the car with her, pulled out his revolver and shot her in the side. She scrambled out the other door and fell on the street, crying for help. "Bitch!" he yelled and laughed loudly at her. He got back into his car and sped off, leaving her to die. Jorge and Edith ran to Veronica Yu. Edith's cousin phoned the Monterey Police Department. When the paramedics came they tried to resuscitate her, but with no luck. Veronica died on the way to the hospital. Initially, police did not connect these two St. Patrick's Day murders to each other or to the murder of Jennie Vincow months earlier. The murders occurred in three different jurisdictions. Criminals, especially burglars, were well aware of the lack of communication and cooperation among the law enforcement agencies in the Greater Los Angeles area and used that fact to their advantage. It just happened that Maria Hernandez's godmother was the mother of Deputy Gil Carrillo of L.A. Sheriff's Homicide unit. Coincidentally, Carrillo happened to be randomly assigned to the Hernandez/Okazaki case. Carrillo was no ordinary cop. First, he was a giant of a man, six feet four inches tall, weighing in at 280 pounds. Secondly, he was a very personable man, but extremely tough and experienced. He was a Medal of Valor and Bronze Star veteran of Vietnam and had worked on more than 300 murder cases. Carrillo knew from his studies with the FBI's Behavior Sciences group at Quantico, VA, that some killers got their sexual kicks from the murdering of a person. Carrillo called up Detective Tony Romero of the Monterey Police and they exchanged information about the Hernandez/ Okazaki and Veronica Yu cases. Carrillo was beginning to think that these two cases were linked by the "man in black." Both of these crimes seemed to be motiveless and random, indicating the potential of a serial killer on the loose. Immediately, Carrillo sought the advice of their serial killer expert, Sgt. Frank Salerno who had headed up the task force to bring in the Hillside Strangler. "Frank was the very best we had," Carrillo said. "You couldn't find a better homicide detective anywhere than Salerno." Salerno was the man who used a tiny piece of thread to tie the two culprits to the murder of ten women. "Bulldog" Salerno was man known for his tenacity. Also a big man, six foot two inches tall and 220 pounds, he kept himself at perfect shape by swimming in his pool everyday. He was also a gun aficionado and a crack shot. Carrillo and Salerno (Carlo) Carrillo collected all of the evidence and eyewitness reports that they had and took the information to Frank. Importantly, several people had seen the killer, including Maria. "He was five ten, thin, with black hair and dark, real scary, eyes," she said of him. He dressed in black, possibly the owner of a hat with the emblem of the heavy metal rock group AC/DC that had fallen off in the garage. Salerno told Carrillo to start looking at the crime reports and released sex criminals. In all likelihood, the man had killed before and just not been tied to the earlier crimes. "A man does not become a killer overnight." The Night Stalker took an eight-day vacation before he began the hunt again. This time in the early morning of March 26, he visited the well-to-do community of Whittier. At two in the morning he silently pulled up to the home of Vincent and Maxine Zazzara in his stolen Toyota. From the outside of the house, he could see the middle-aged Zazzara sleeping on the couch in front of the television. Through another window, he saw Maxine asleep on her bed. He tried to get the screen off, but everything was locked up. Eventually, he hoisted himself up to the laundry room window and pried open the window. Once inside, he went straight to the den and shot Zazzara in the head with his .22 caliber revolver. Vincent tried to get up, but the .22 had already done its damage to his brain and he fell over onto the floor. Then he went right to the bedroom. The shot had awakened Maxine, but by the time she could collect her thoughts, he had tied her hands together with a necktie. While he was ransacking the bedroom, she did something very bold. Knowing that there was a shotgun that her husband kept under the bed, she quietly and quickly rolled off the bed and grabbed the shotgun. By the time he saw her, he was looking down the barrel of a shotgun. He reached for the gun in his pants and she immediately pulled the trigger. No big boom, just a little click. Vincent had taken all the ammunition out when the grandkids had come over for the weekend. He shot her three times with the .22. Then he beat her and kicked her, but it wasn't enough to vent his fury. He raced into the kitchen, brought back a carving knife with a 10-inch blade, and tried to cut out her heart. He couldn't cut through her rib cage so he cut out her eyes and put them in a jewelry box. He pulled up her nightgown with the idea of sexually assaulting her, but he was too keyed up by the episode with the shotgun. Finally he stabbed her stomach, throat and pubic area. He took everything he could fence and left by the front door, his clothes drenched in Maxine's blood. When friends found the Zazzaras later that day, the sheriff's homicide detectives were brought in. They found the killer's shoeprint on the patio and on the large can he used to climb into the laundry room. The same shoeprints were in the flower bed just under the window the killer had entered. The shoeprints matched one discovered in the attempted abduction of a young L.A. woman. At that point, there was not enough reason to tie the Zazzara attack to the attacks on Jennie Vincow, Dayle Okazaki and Veronica Yu. When Carrillo heard of the Zazzara murders, he had a hunch it was the same man, but his colleagues laughed at his suggestion. "No one suspect did all these crimes," they told him. Eighteen days after he murdered the Zazzaras, the Night Stalker cruised around Monterery Park where he had killed Veronica Yu. It was early morning when he parked his car on Trumblower Avenue. He noticed a woman drive by and look at him. Her name was Launie Dempster and she delivered the Herald Examiner. During the day, she worked as a security guard at a college in Whittier. The killer selected the home of William and Lillian Doi, a retired couple of Japanese descent. Lillian was wheelchair bound, having suffered a crippling stroke a couple of years earlier. He went around the back of the house and found an open window. He cut the screen and opened the window wide enough to crawl in. First he went into Bill's bedroom. Bill heard him and grabbed one of the handguns he kept around the house for security reasons. The killer was too fast for him. Holding the .22 in combat position, he shot Bill just above the upper lip. Then he beat Bill into unconsciousness. By this time, Lillian was awake and thoroughly terrified. The killer went over to her bed, slapped her and warned her not to make any noise. "Shut up, bitch, or I'll kill you." He immobilized her hands with thumb cuffs and began to ransack the house. Bill regained consciousness briefly, so the killer went back in the room and beat him once again until he passed out. So excited by the violence, he went back into Lillian's bedroom and raped the fifty-six-year-old invalid woman. After the intruder left, Bill briefly regained consciousness, dragged himself into Lillian's room and summoned up enough strength to call the police. First came the fire department and then the Monterey Park police. William Doi was pronounced dead at 5:13 in the morning. A short time later, Detective Paul Torres found the footprints from a pair of Avia brand shoes on the rear patio and on the screen that the killer had removed. They made a plaster cast of the shoeprints. When Carrillo went over to talk to Torres, he was not welcomed, since it was not his jurisdiction. Consequently, Carrillo did not hear about the Avia footprints that would have matched the footprints from the Zazzara murders and the attempted abduction of the girl from L.A. Jurisdictional problems and jealousies have marred the relationships between the Los Angeles area law enforcement agencies for decades. Sometimes, this lack of communication and cooperation merely slows down the capture of criminals such as in the Charles Manson case, but in the Night Stalker case, lives may have been lost as a consequence. On the night of May 29, the killer headed northeast of Los Angeles to the town of Monrovia in the San Gabriel Valley. Randomly, he selected the house of eighty-one-year-old Mabel Bell, who lived with her invalid sister Nettie Lang. Crime was not something she worried much about, so she habitually left her doors unlocked. The killer went in the front door very quietly. He found a hammer in the kitchen and sunk it repeatedly into Nettie's head. Then he did the same to Mabel until her head was a bloody mess and brain matter scattered all about the room. He took the cord from her nightstand clock, exposed the wire and used it to send electric currents into the body of the beaten woman. With her red lipstick, he drew one pentagram on her thigh and one on the wall above her head. He went back into Nettie's bedroom, all fired up from what he had done, ripped off the nightgown of the elderly woman and raped her. He decorated Nettie's room with another pentagram, grabbed a softdrink and banana in the kitchen and left. Pentagram on wall (Carlo) Before the two women were discovered, he was at it again. The thrill and sexual high of what he did to Mabel and Nettie was so great that he needed to repeat it again immediately. Burbank was the location he decided upon for this particular hunt. The house he selected was locked up tight, so he reached through the dog door and was able to reach up and unlock the back door. He saw the sleeping woman and shined a flashlight in her eyes. "Wake up, bitch! Don't scream or I'll kill you." When he asked who else was in the house, a terrified Carol Kyle told him that her eleven-year-old son was in the next room. He made her lead him to the boy's bedroom door and then lie down on the floor. He astonished her and her son when he opened the boy's door, turned on the light and jumped on the sleeping boy, putting a gun to his head. Carol ran into the room and put herself between the killer and her son. "Please don't hurt him. Take whatever you want, just don't hurt him, please!" "Don't look at me," he commanded her while he handcuffed the mother and son together. He took the two of them and closed them in the hall closet. Just as he shut the door, he opened it again and said, "You don't have any guns in here, do you?" Kyle's home ransacked (Carlo) She told him that she didn't own any guns, but he went frantically searching the house just in case. Then he demanded her jewelry. She promised to give it to him as long as he didn't hurt her children. He uncuffed the two of them, and then cuffed the son's hands behind him and shut him back up in the closet. He tied her hands together with pantyhose and threw her on the bed. "Do what I say and you'll both be all right," he said as he ripped off her nightgown and panties and forced her to go down on him. He sodomized her several times roughly. The more she hurt, the more he was turned on by it. She described his eyes as absolutely demonic, so she was careful not to do anything to resist him or make him angry. He was like a bomb ready to explode. After this assault, he went to get a softdrink from the kitchen and told her that she wasn't bad sexually, considering her age (forty-two). "You're lucky I'm letting you live. I've killed a lot of people you know." Finally, he gave her a nightgown to cover herself and brought her son in the room where he cuffed them both to the bed. The key to the cuffs he left on the mantel so that when her daughter came home, she could free them. "You say anything about who I am and I'll have my friends come back here...I know where you live, remember." When they were finally rescued, nobody at the Burbank police department linked the assault on Carol Kyle to the other attacks and consequently, Carrillo at the sheriff's homicide unit was not called. The next day, Carol worked with an artist to capture his features, but the composite was not a successful rendering of the man who attacked her. Night Stalker composite A few days later, the handyman found Nettie and Mabel. Remarkably, the two were still alive, but just barely. They had multiple skull fractures, exposed brain matter and tears around the vagina. Both elderly women were comatose. Monrovia police called in the sheriff's homicide detectives to help. Even though neither woman was dead, the Bell/Lang attack was so life threatening that the small police force needed the sheriff's resources to address the matter. There was a great deal of evidence for them to collect. After raping, torturing and beating the old women almost to death, the killer made himself right at home. They found two half-eaten bananas, a toilet full of urine, and empty softdrink cans. There was a footstep marked in blood. If it was one man responsible for all of these attacks, then they had a very unusual serial killer on their hands. For the most part, a serial killer sticks with one particular type of victim. If the same man who assaulted Mabel and Nettie killed the Zazzaras, Bill Doi, Dayle Okazaki and Veronica Yu, then they had a unique breed of serial killer on their hands from whom no one was safe. In early June, the killer selected a house in Pico Rivera, about a half-mile from the Zazzara's home and a few blocks away from the home of Detective Carrillo's mother. It was just around midnight when he tried the windows, but they were locked, except for the one in the dining room. He took off the screen, but had trouble raising the window, which was stuck in place by dried paint. A screwdriver loosened it and he opened the window slowly. Inside the house he heard a woman call out, "John, did you open the window?" L.A. Sheriff's deputy John Rodriguez got out of bed and went into the living room where his wife Susan was watching the late news. "Well, it wasn't me, and that window's been sealed for two years -- ever since I painted the house.." "I heard it go up," she insisted. With that, the killer wisely abandoned the house and went back to his car, but he left his distinctive Avia footprint right under the dining room window. The deputy called in the attempted housebreaking immediately and Detective Carrillo was notified. All of a sudden, this case became intensely personal to Carrillo. His mother could have become a victim like Nettie Lang or Mabel Bell. It was a bad night for the killer, too. He just couldn't find the right house to invade and it made him mad. He tried to kidnap a girl in Eagle Rock, but someone called the cops and he had to run. Then, to make matters worse, he ran a red light and was stopped by an LAPD motorcycle cop. With no driver's license, no registration, and a stolen Toyota, the killer began to get a bit nervous. But as luck would have it, the motorcycle cop, even though he had heard that the description of the man who had tried to abduct the girl and knew the perpetrator was driving a stolen Toyota, didn't connect the two events. The officer walked back to the killer to give him a traffic ticket and asked, "Hey...you're not the guy killing people in their homes, are you?" "No way, man" the killer protested. "When are you guys going to catch that motherfucker anyway?" When the cop went back to his motorcycle, the killer drew a pentagram on the Toyota's hood and ran away. The cop tried to catch him, but the killer got away. The officer went back to the stolen car and found a wallet with a hundred in cash, a dentist's appointment card, and a phone book with half a dozen phone numbers. The cop didn't think to have the car dusted for prints even though some would have certainly been made when the pentagram was drawn. When Carrillo heard about the incident and the attempted abduction, he went over to LAPD, but was told that they wouldn't release any information until the higher ups approved. Carrillo went to the crime lab and told them he needed to know everything about these Avia Aerobic sneakers that were the one link between many of the crimes. What stores carried them? How many came to this area? What means existed to track down the buyers of the very large size sneakers like the killer had? That afternoon, Frank Salerno and Gil Carrillo decided to become official partners. Carrillo was thrilled to be working with a man so worthy of respect. The two of them knew it was just a matter of time before the Night Stalker was theirs. In early June, Carrillo and Salerno were called to investigate the murder of Patty Higgins, a pretty twenty-eight-year-old woman who lived in Arcadia. She had been beaten badly and nearly decapitated. The wounds to her neck were a combination of a stab and a slash which had been quickly fatal to the attractive young schoolteacher. It appeared that she had been sodomized. Their were no Avia prints and no .22 caliber revolver, so they had nothing to tie the murder specifically to the Night Stalker. But the sheer brutality of the attack pointed in his direction. The Night Stalker struck again on July 2, going back to the suburb of Arcadia, northeast of the city at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. He selected the home of seventy-five-year-old Mary Louise Cannon, who lived alone. Her ranch-style home was completely dark. Very sure of himself, he lifted the screen off the front window, pried it open and entered quietly. He made sure that the sleeping woman was alone and then took a lamp from her dresser and slammed it down on her head, beating her and choking her into unconsciousness. Then he took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her in the throat over and over again. Finally, he ransacked her house and left by the front door. When Salerno and Carrillo came to investigate this second brutal murder in Arcadia, they realized that their man had done both killings. The stab-slashing of the throat on Mary Louise Cannon was identical to the one inflicted on Patty Higgins. There was something more -- the imprint of a large footprint in the nap of a new rug. The print was cut from the rug and rushed to the laboratory. Also, a piece of tissue was found on the floor that clearly bore the unique waffle pattern of the Avia Aerobic sneaker. At that point, they had the evidence to prove that there was a terrifying new serial killer at work. Salerno and Carrillo met with Captain Bob Grimm and were given the resources and authority to mount a full-scale investigation. A couple of days later, the killer went back a third time to the upscale community of Arcadia and selected the home of executive Steve Bennett, his wife and children, sixteen-year-old Whitney and eighteen-year-old James. He got in through the front door and, as was his custom, prowled around the house until he knew exactly how many people were there sleeping. This time he brought the tire iron from the stolen car so that he could beat the Bennetts to death. He battered sixteen-year-old Whitney ten times with the tire iron. Then he took some telephone cord, wrapped it around her neck and tightened it. For some reason, he left the house without ransacking it or waking the other members of the household. The next day, a beaten and bruised Whitney awakened in a pool of her own blood with a horrendous headache. She had no idea what had happened to her. Later that day, the waffle pattern of the Avia Aerobic shoe was clearly visible on Whitney's comforter, and the mystery was solved. The next day, Salerno and Carrillo developed a composite description of the Night Stalker. He was tall, with a shoe size of 11 and 1/2, Hispanic with unkempt black hair, poor teeth and a bad "wet leather" odor about him. He was a Satanist and a sadist, with a particular interest in sodomy. Carol Kyle called him a good-looking, light-skinned Mexican, who was very vicious. On July 7, the Night Stalker, dressed as he normally was all in black, went back to Monterey Park where he had murdered Bill Doi and Veronica Yu. He chose the home of sixty-one-year-old Joyce Nelson and entered her home through an unlocked window. She was sleeping on the couch in front of the television when he put the .22 to her head. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward the bedroom. She tried to fight him off, but it made him even angrier. He knocked her to the floor and beat her into unconsciousness with his fists. Then he dragged her into the bedroom, kicked her in the face so hard that the imprint of his Avia shoe was visible on her face. He beat her to death, robbed her home and walked out the front door to his car. But that was not enough for one night. The Night Stalker came back to Monterey Park again around 3 in the morning. He picked the home of sixty-three-year-old Sophie Dickman, a psychiatric nurse. All of her doors and windows were locked so, but he was persistent. He reached inside a pet door and was able to unlock the door from that. When he was sure that she was alone in the house, he pulled out his revolver, turned on the lights and charged at her bed. As he held his hand over her mouth, he told her. "Don't look at me! Don't make a fucking sound or I'll kill you!" Then he put the .22 to her head, "Undermotherfuckingstand?" Sophie knew who he was immediately from reading about him in the newspapers. Her experience as a psychiatric nurse kept her from doing anything to set him off as he handcuffed her and put a pillowcase over his head. "Where's the diamonds and where's the money?" When she told him she didn't have any, he punched her in the face. "Liar! Where's the jewelry or you are fucking dead!" She told him her jewelry was in a hiding place in the bathroom. He dragged her in there and she gave him everything she had hidden. While he was examining her jewelry, she slipped off her diamond ring and hid it, but he caught her at it and punched her again in the face. He tried unsuccessfully to rape her, but he couldn't get an erection. Then he demanded to know where her other valuables were hidden. She swore to him that she had no other jewelry. He made her swear on Satan that she wasn't hiding anything more from him. He handcuffed her to the bed and warned her not to scream. "Remember, I know where you live," he told her and proceeded to ransack the house. Right opposite Sophie Dickman's house, Sheriff's Deputy Linda Arthur lived. Mrs. Dickman's calls to her woke her up and she went over in her bathrobe to help her neighbor. Realizing that the Monterey Park police would not be particularly receptive to Carrillo from the sheriff's office coming to the crime scene, Linda Arthur made sure that they understood that Carrillo was a friend of hers and that she had asked him for help. At first, they weren't sure it was the Night Stalker. The characteristic Avia footprints were not found around Sophie's house. Sophie described the Stalker as a good-looking, tall, thin man with bad teeth . But soon, the discovery of Joyce Nelson and the Avia footprint on her face confirmed that the Night Stalker was indeed on a rampage that night. Carrillo and Salerno raced to Joyce Nelson's home, but the news media beat both of them to the punch. It was finally clear that a serial killer was at work. Philip Carlo in his book The Night Stalker describes the scenario: "Quickly, word of the incredible brutality, missing eyes, pentagrams, torture, sodomy, and brutal rapes spread among the newspeople like blood on white satin. There were camera crews from every network, as well as print reporters with photographers from all of the newspapers, Spanish and Japanese included...When the news media learned that the Frank Salerno, of Hillside Strangler fame, was running the task force for this new serial killer...they wouldn't leave him alone. He, and soon Carrillo as well, were hounded by reporters...from as far away as England, Israel, and Brazil." The criminalists at the sheriff's office had gathered some very important information on the Avia Aerobic Shoe. Very few had been made and only six pair had been sold in Los Angeles. Of those six pair of Avias, only one pair was size 11 and 1/2. Photos of the unique shoe were rushed to all the police agencies in Los Angeles County. Finally, LAPD let the sheriff's office have the car that was left behind when the Night Stalker was scared off by the motorcycle cop. Carrillo and Salerno also found out about the dentist's appointment card and the book with phone numbers that had been left in the car. After that, the area's law enforcement groups started to pull together. Stalker's Avia shoeprint (Carlo) They contacted Dr. Leung, who told them that a Richard Mena had made the appointment. The dentist was sure that the man would need treatment soon because of a very painful condition. A deputy was stationed in the dentist's office and the task force focused on trying to find a Richard Mena with very large feet. All of the publicity made things harder for the task force. Every one seemed to know who the Night Stalker was and the sheriff's office was inundated with tips from both citizens and police alike. However, one of the few good things that did result from the publicity was that people in Los Angeles area became very security conscious, making sure that they locked their windows and doors. Sales of guns, security systems and guard dogs soared. The biggest downside of the publicity was the effect on the Night Stalker himself. He was catapulted into celebrity status and his sick ego fed on every scrap. The publicity validated his power and encouraged him to plan even more brutal attacks. He, too, became very security conscious now that the police had put their best men on his track. On July 17, Mabel Bell died from the head wounds the Night Stalker had inflicted on her at the end of May. Her sister, Nettie Lang, remained alive, but in a coma. Armed with a new huge machete, the Night Stalker was anxious to get back to work. On July 20, he selected the upscale city of Glendale and cruised down its streets until he came to the home of Max and Lela Kneidling, both in their sixties. He sneaked into their bedroom and slammed the machete at Max's neck, but the blade was not sharp enough to decapitate him. Annoyed, he shot both husband and wife in the face with his revolver. Afterwards, he used his new machete to cut and stab them. He had to ransack the house quickly before the gun shots brought the police. The night was still young and his savagery had not tired him, so he drove to Sun Valley to select another victim. A little after 4 A.M., he decided upon the home of Chainarong and Somkid Khovananth, immigrants from Thailand, and their two young children.. He gained entry through an unlocked patio door. As he stepped into the den, he saw the tiny, attractive Somkid sleeping on the couch. He put a .25 caliber gun to her head. "Don't make a fucking sound, bitch, or I'll kill you!" He left her and went to the bedroom where her husband Chainarong was sleeping, put the gun to his head and shot him to death. He ran back to Somkid and noticed that she had taken off her wedding ring. He slapped her. "Don't play no fucking games, bitch! Where's the ring?" She showed him and he pocketed the diamond. Then he ripped off her nightgown and dragged her into the bathroom where he cut the cord on the hairdryer and used it to tie her hands behind her back. He took her back into the bedroom where he raped her in the presence of her dead husband. Their boy's alarm clock went off, so he left Somkid momentarily to tie up the boy and gag him with a sock. He forced her to go down on him and sodomized her. Then he told her he'd kill her and the kids if she didn't give him all of their cash and valuables. She gave him the diamonds and other precious stones she had gotten from her brother who was a jeweler. "And where's the money?" "No money, no money! I swear, I swear to God!" she cried. "No! Swear to Satan!" He raped her again, tied her ankles together, finished ransacking her home and left. Again, the lack of cooperation among the police jurisdictions interfered with the case. Neither Sun Valley nor Glendale police notified the sheriff's office about the murders. It wasn't until the next day that Carrillo and Salerno found out about them. The Avia shoe print was in evidence at the scene of the Sun Valley attack, but not at the Glendale murders. Somkid worked with a police artist to create a composite. "He is dangerous beyond words," she told them. "So brutal; so mean, so cruel. His eyes were like an animal's, not human." The composite was given to the press and every cop in the area had it taped to the dashboard of the police car. Los Angeles was in a state of panic. No one was safe from this brutal monster. Philip Carlo described the effect the Night Stalker had on everyone in the area: "All over L.A., the police were getting reports of a suspicious man in black. Elderly women were terrified of being alone. Girls had to be home early from dates. Husbands sat up all night standing guard with bats and guns at the ready. Children insisted on sleeping in their parents' beds; many people couldn't sleep at all. Communities pooled their resources and set up patrols that walked the streets until dawn." The Stalker's next hit was in the lovely community of Northridge. He chose the home of thirty-eight-year-old Chris Petersen, his wife Virginia and their young daughter. All the windows and doors were locked except for the sliding glass door. He went into Chris and Virginia's bedroom and cocked the .25 automatic that he was carrying. "Who the hell are you? Get out!" Virginia shouted at him. "Shut up, bitch!" he yelled and shot her just under the left eye. Chris woke up to find half of his wife's face gone and her covered in blood. The stalker shot him in the right temple and laughed. Then he fired another shot at Virginia, but missed. Their daughter started screaming in the next room. Chris fought with the Stalker, who shot at him, but missed. With his empty gun, the Stalker ran out the sliding glass doors, while Chris called for help. Both of them had been very lucky. The ammunition the Stalker had been using was defective and didn't go through Chris's skull. Virginia's bullet had missed her brain entirely and had exited the back of her neck. After the Petersen attack, the Stalker decided that he needed to beef up his defenses just in case he had a run-in with the police. He bought an Uzi machine gun to add to his .38 pistol, his .25 automatic and his handcuffs. On August 8, he drove to the town of Diamond Bar, far enough east of L.A. that they wouldn't be expecting him. He selected the home of Elyas and Sakina Abowath, their three-year-old boy and infant son. The Stalker gained entrance by a sliding glass door and went straight to Elyas and Sakina's bedroom. He walked over to the bed and shot Elyas to death with the .25 automatic. Then he jumped over Elyas' body and straddled Sakina, punching her in the face and the stomach. "Don't scream, bitch, or I'll kill your kids," he said and slapped her again. He kicked her with such ferocity that she landed on the floor. "Where's the jewelry, bitch?" He slammed his fist into her face when she didn't answer fast enough. Finally, he found a briefcase with her jewelry. "Don't make a motherfucking sound, understand, bitch?" "I swear to God I won't scream." He slammed his fist into her face again. "No! Swear to Satan!" he bellowed. He ripped off her nightie and her nursing bra and forced her to go down on him. Then he raped her and sodomized her, excited by her pain and humiliation. She heard her young son crying in the next room. "Please let me go to him," she begged. "Swear on Satan you won't scream." She did as he demanded and went into the child's bedroom to calm him down. When the child went back to sleep, the Stalker dragged her in the bedroom, punching and slapping her. He was raping her again, when the little boy opened the bedroom door and walked in. The Stalker tied the boy to the bed and put a pillow over his head to shut him up. Sakina tried to help her son, but he punched her. It was only after he raped and sodomized her again, that he let her comfort her son. Then he went to the refrigerator and helped himself to some melon. Finally he left, taking all of their valuables with him stashed in a pillowcase, leaving her widowed, handcuffed and nude. While there were no Avia shoe prints this time, the shoe prints that were found were the same large size as the Avia. There was no doubt that this was the Stalker again. Elyas had been shot in the head exactly where Chainarong Khovananth had been shot. Despite his painful dental condition, the Stalker never returned to Dr. Leung. However, the sheriff's task force sent out the Stalker's dental X-rays, along with the composite sketch to every dentist in the L.A. area. The Night Stalker began to worry about getting caught. True, he believed that Satan was protecting him from the police, but there was no point in being careless. Now that the composite sketch had been published, along with numerous physical descriptions of him, he felt like people were staring at him. Then there was his fence, who wouldn't think twice about turning him in for the $80,000 reward. Time to take a visit to San Francisco. Nobody would be expecting him there. It would be so much easier to get into houses when people were not on their guard like they were in Los Angeles. He stole a car and drove north to San Francisco. As soon as he arrived, he drove into Chinatown, followed an elderly woman home and beat her senseless. Early in the morning of August 8, the Stalker invaded the home of Peter and Barbara Pan, well-to-do immigrants from Hong Kong. When he entered Peter's bedroom, he put the .25 automatic to Peter's head and shot him dead. He tried to rape Barbara, but she fought him off and he shot her. Taking her lipstick, he wrote on the wall of the bedroom "Jack the Knife" and sketched a pentagram. He ransacked the house and left. When Salerno and Carrillo heard about the assault on the Pans in San Francisco, they contacted the police. A short conversation on the shell casing found at the Pan home convinced them that the Stalker had indeed moved to San Francisco. The two men took a plane to San Francisco and laid out all of the information that they had collected from the Stalker investigation in Los Angeles. Amazingly enough, then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein held a news conference in which she told the press about all of the evidence that the L.A. task force had assembled with special attention to the Avia shoe footprints and ballistics evidence. Back in Los Angeles, Salerno and Carrillo were aghast at the mayor had essentially tipped off the Stalker about the most important evidence they had, giving him the opportunity to get rid of the Avia sneakers and the guns. On August 25, the Stalker may have been starting to get paranoid again. San Francisco was no safer than L.A., so he took his stolen car and headed back home. He took his stolen Toyota and headed toward Mission Viejo. When he cruised down the street with his lights off at 1 A.M., he didn't notice the teenager fixing his motor scooter. The teenager, James Romero III, noticed the Stalker. The intensely evil expression on the driver's face left an impression on the young man's mind. He selected the home of twenty-nine-year-old Bill Carns, who lived with his good-looking blond fiancie, Carole Smith. The Stalker got into their home through an unlocked rear window and went straight to the master bedroom. When he got into the bedroom, he cocked the automatic. Bill woke up immediately. The Stalker shot him in the head three times. "You know who I am?" he asked with a laugh. Carole Smith was terrified. "No, who are you?" "I'm the Night Stalker!" He laughed again. "Oh, God, noooo!" "Don't say 'God,' say 'Satan.' Say you love Satan!" He slapped her hard across the face. "I love Satan!" she said. He punched her in the face. "Louder!" "I love Satan! Please don't kill me! Please, please!" He threw her on the bed and tied her up and demanded money and jewelry, constantly slapping and kicking her. Then, after he ransacked the bedroom, he dragged her into a second bedroom where he raped and sodomized her. Then at the end of the brutal assault, a gentle kiss. His tenderness changed into brutality instantly when he demanded that she give him money. She gave him the $400 that Bill had stashed in the bedroom. "You know, this is all that saved you. This is all your life is worth. I would have killed you if it weren't for this money." "Tell them the Night Stalker was here." "I will," she promised. "Say you love Satan!" "I love Satan," she said. He laughed and then he left. On his way back down the street, James Romero III saw the car again and wrote down three digits of the license plate. Later, when he heard of the attack on Bill Carns and Carole Smith, he called the police. When she felt safe, Carole ran next door and had the neighbor call the police. They got Bill to the hospital where two of the three bullets were removed. Removal of the third bullet would have caused too much damage to Bill's already traumatized skull. The man was lucky and survived it all. The Stalker always wore gloves, but this time, he was sweating so much that he removed them for awhile. When he ditched the Toyota, he wiped down the car as he always did, just in case there was a print or two. This time, he was not vigilant enough and missed a fingerprint on the rearview mirror. The Stalker's streak of excellent luck was coming to an end. Jesse Perez had confided in his daughter that he thought one of his shady contacts was the Stalker. He fit the physical description, was a Satanist and he had bad teeth. Perez's daughter didn't want her father to get into trouble, so she called Homicide Detective Louie Danoff. Once Danoff heard her story, he assured her that her father would be protected. "He's a loner and always talking about how great Satan is." Salerno showed him the composite sketch and he said it looked like the man he knew as Rick. Perez told them about Rick's fence, Felipe Solano. Solano admitted knowing Rick, but didn't know his full name or where he lived. When they confiscated all of the stolen goods in Solano's apartment, the police had a storehouse of potential evidence. A real break in the case occurred when the owner of the stolen Toyota called the police and provided them with the missing digits in the license plate. The car was later recovered and dusted for prints. The criminalist found the one fingerprint that the Stalker had missed. Another break came when they found a friend of Rick's who had seen him with the silver .25 automatic. Donna Meyer said that Rick was a burglar from El Paso and had given her some jewelry to hold for him. They had become suspicious of him after reading the descriptions of the Night Stalker, which fit Rick so well. Through the leads that Donna Meyer gave the police, they put a last name to Rick. It was Ramirez. The police went to every flophouse in the Los Angeles area, taking with them the composite sketch. Finally, they got to the Bristol Hotel where there was a tenant in room 315 that fit the description. Up in room 315 was a pentagram on the bathroom door that was almost identical to the one drawn at the homes of Mabel Bell and Peter and Barbara Pan. The criminalists were called in to dust for prints. They matched the prints and the name to Richard Munoz Ramirez, a two-bit burglar and car thief from El Paso. He fit the description perfectly. His mugshot went out to everyone: police and press. Everyone was looking for Richard Ramirez. Richard Ramirez was born February 29, 1960, to Julian and Mercedes Ramirez, two hard working Mexican immigrants. He was their fifth and last child with three brothers and a sister who preceded him. Initially, the family settled in El Paso where Julian had a job laying track for the Santa Fe Railroad. Mercedes had a job at the Tony Lama boot factory where she mixed chemicals and pigments for the boot leather. Mercedes was carrying Richard while she worked at the boot factory, but had to quit in her fifth month of pregnancy. The fumes from the pigments and poor ventilation made her weak, light-headed and nauseous. While Richard was not planned, he was adored as the baby of the family. His older sister Ruth, who frequently took care of him, was devoted to him. Julian and Mercedes had very high hopes for their children and constantly sacrificed to provide a good home for them. Their oldest son Joseph had been plagued from childhood by poor health and serious orthopedic problems that were believed to have resulted from his parents' exposure to nuclear fallout and radioactivity from New Mexico. With their limited resources, they paid for fifteen operations to help Joseph try to lead a normal life. Two other boys, Ruben and Robert, had learning disabilities and behavioral problems in school. It looked as though Richard, the baby, might escape some of the difficulties his older brothers had experienced: "Richard continued to be Ruth's personal doll. For hours she'd play house with him like he was her child, talking to him softly in both English and Spanish. Richard was a good baby, didn't cry much, and ate and slept well. He was particularly good looking, with a well-formed face and big, round, long-lashed eyes....Richard loved music." (Philip Carlo) Life was not easy in the Ramirez family, but they all worked hard to make ends meet. Julian and Mercedes loved their children and provided for them to the best of their ability. The boys, who were rebellious natured and hot-tempered like their father, could have benefited from more supervision, but Julian had to travel to lay track for the railroad and was away from home frequently. Ruben and Robert started to get into trouble with the law. They were sniffing glue, stealing cars, burglarizing homes and hanging around with the wrong kids. Julian flew into a rage. He was so ashamed that his boys had become so wild. The boys were punished, but it didn't do any good. When Richard was in the fifth grade, the family realized that he was epileptic. Sometimes he would have grand mal seizures and other times he would just stare off into space as he experienced petite mal seizures. The doctors told Mercedes that he would grow out of it and eventually he did. Up to the age of thirteen, Richard did comparatively well in school with better than average grades. In the seventh grade, things started to go downhill. According to his sister, when Richard was arbitrarily thrown off the football team, his pride was very hurt. Richard had been very proud of being a good quarterback and felt it was very unfair of the coach to drop him from the team because he had an occasional blackout from the epilepsy. Shortly afterwards when he was twelve, Richard found a new mentor, one that would heavily influence his behavior. His cousin Mike had been a Green Beret in Vietnam and had returned from two tours of duty with four medals on his chest. He also brought with him a Polaroid odyssey of rape, torture and mutilation that made a huge impression on young Richard. This highly successful killer and sadist took Richard under his wing and taught him how to kill and fight. Mike's wife Jessie was alarmed at what Mike had become during the war. She didn't need a husband who did nothing but brag about his wartime brutalities and sexual conquests, smoke pot and hang around with Richard. Disagreements between the two became more and more heated and one day, in front of Richard, Mike shot his wife in the face. Mike went to trial for the murder, but plead temporary insanity. With his impressive war record, Mike was dealt with leniently and was committed to a mental hospital. Mike's influence on Richard was indelible. His interest in school had vanished and all the thirteen-year-old boy cared about was getting high on pot. He went to Los Angeles to live for the summer with his brother Ruben who was a heroin addict and a burglar. There was only one objective now -- stealing money to get high. When he went back to El Paso, the clashes with his father became more prevalent. Julian was heartbroken to see his youngest son going down the wrong path. Richard saw his father as a tyrant. Both of them, like all of the Ramirez men, had terrible, explosive tempers. Eventually, he moved in with his sister Ruth and her husband Roberto. The problem with Roberto was that he was over-sexed. Roberto and Richard would entertain themselves at night by going to selected homes in the neighborhood and peeping in the windows at unsuspecting women as they undressed. Richard had always been somewhat hyperactive and required very little rest. "My brother never slept," Ruth said. "He was up all night all the time. He was one of those people who functioned with only a few hours of sleep." During this period of his life, Richard started taking LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs. At the same time, he started imagining that he was becoming one with Satan. He saw himself as a disciple of Satan. Richie at 15 (Carlo) While he was in high school, he got a job with a hotel and had access to a master key. He began breaking into the rooms while the guests were sleeping so that he could steal their valuables. He was careful enough so that no one connected the occasional thefts with his access to the passkey. He became obsessed with the beautiful women in the hotel. Often, he would sneak into the room and hide behind the heavy curtains so that he could watch them undress. He fantasized about sex with these women until his fantasies erupted into an assault. He went into the woman's room, surprised her from behind, tied her up and proceeded to rape her when her husband came into the room and knocked Richard to the ground. He gave Richard a well deserved beating and turned him over to the police. Richard's parents were in denial. There was no way that their baby Richie could have assaulted that woman. Richard convinced his family that the woman had lured him to have sex and her husband simply came back unexpectedly. Richard was only fifteen and the judge was lenient. He got away without any probation. Even his parents believed his story. Cousin Mike got out of the mental hospital at the end of 1977 and started hanging around with Richard again. By that time, Richard had become a very effective burglar and thief. From Mike he learned survival tactics and how to be tough. Aside from his cousin, he saw himself as a loner in a hostile unfair world. When Richard turned eighteen in 1978, he left his home in El Paso and headed for Los Angeles. His only interests were drugs, sexual fantasies and the heavy metal music which he listened to continuously. Philip Carlo describes the dangerous young man that he had become: "He was drawn to musical groups whose rhythms were hard-driving and whose lyrics had something to do with his innermost thoughts on religion and sex. He no longer believed in the Catholic Church....Intense sadistic sexual images filled Richard's head...For such thoughts, Jesus Christ, he knew, would scorn him and make sure he went to hell and stayed there forever...Unlike Jesus, Satan would not scorn him, but embrace him and give him solace, protection and understanding." Once in Los Angeles, Richard initially stayed with his brother Ruben until the two of them had a falling out over Ruben's wife. Richard became a cocaine addict and supported himself by burglary. When he was stealing to support his habit, he sat around fantasizing about sadistic sexual relationships. He had no normal relationships with women. The only sex he had was with prostitutes. Eventually, Richard started substituting P.C.P or "angel dust" for cocaine. It did nothing but deepen his aggressive and psychotic episodes. One day, he vented his aggression on another addict. He tied her up, ripped off her clothes and raped her several times, thrilled by his power over her. It was a profound moment in his fantasy life and he hungered for more. At this time, Richard started reading about Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan in San Francisco. He felt compelled to join their rituals, but eventually shunned the organized cult and preferred to be what he termed a "lone practitioner." This belief in Satan was not just a whimsy, but a deep-seated belief in the power of Lucifer to protect and empower his disciples. He tried to explain it to his sister when she visited him in L.A. and was alarmed at the changes in him. "Why Satan, Richie?" she wanted to know. "Because Satan represents what I feel. I'm not like other people. I'm different...I've got a trade. I'm a thief, Ruth...and a good one...I'm not going to any jail. I'm protected." At the end of August, Richard was buying some coffee at a liquor store. He became aware of a couple of elderly Mexican women pointing at him. "El Matador," he heard one say -- "the killer." Then he saw his face in the newspaper and ran out of the store, but the store owner had notified the police and cruisers were arriving from every direction. Everywhere he went, people recognized him immediately. He tried to pull a woman out of her car, but was stopped by Carmello Robles and Arthur Benavedes. Richard jumped a fence and landed in the backyard of Luis Munoz who was grilling meat. Luis hit Richard and Richard went over the fence again. This time into the yard of Faustino Pinon, whose daughter's car was sitting in the driveway with the engine running. "Get away, I'm taking the car. I have a gun and I'll kill you!" Faustino grabbed Richard by the neck. "You are not taking this car." He grabbed the wheel of the car and steered it into the chimney. Richard ran off and tried to take the car of Angela De La Torre, whose car was parked in front of her home. She saw him running at her and recognized him from the newspapers. When she refused to give him her keys, he punched her in the stomach. "El Matador!" she screamed. Her husband Manuel heard her screams and understood immediately what was happening. He picked up a metal bar from his front gate, opened the door to the car and whacked Richard on the head. Richard escaped from the car and ran up the street with Manuel and others chasing him. Manuel struck out at Richard again and missed, but the next time he was dead on and Richard went down. They held him there until the sheriff's deputies and LAPD arrived. The Night Stalker had been captured by the Mexican community. Later, when he they put him in jail, Richard said to Sgt. George Thomas: "I want the electric chair. They should have shot me on the street. I did it, you know. You guys got me -- the Night Stalker. Hey, let me have a gun to play Russian roulette. I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life in prison." Salerno and Carrillo were exceptionally relieved to have Richard in custody, but then another break came their way. Richard's leather bag had been found at the bus terminal. Inside were the special .25-caliber shells that he had used on several of his victims. Phil Halpin from the Los Angeles district attorney's office was chosen to lead the prosecution of this very high profile case. He was a fine trial lawyer and felt confident that with the evidence and eye witness accounts that a conviction would be obtained. He believed that Ramirez deserved the gas chamber and was intent on making sure he got what was due him. He didn't see that Ramirez had much chance of using an insanity plea because the crimes were too well organized, planned and executed to convince any jury that he was insane. From the very beginning of the legal proceedings, it was clear that both the press and the opposite sex were fascinated with Richard. His defiant, dangerous demeanor was thrilling to a growing number of groupies that were present at every public outing. He was inundated with letters, mostly from women who either thought he was innocent and wanted to help him or thought he was exciting and wanted sex with him. Satanists from all over made him their poster boy. Philip Carlo describes the impact all of this attention had on Richard: "For the first time, he realized that to people like him, people of the night, he was a hero; he was somebody. He liked that. For his whole life he'd been a tall, lanky nobody, just another angry-eyed hungry face in a hungry crowd, but now people stopped -- people paid attention, stared and pointed....He figured no matter what he did they were going to convict him and kill him, so he decided to take control." Richard had to stand in a lineup with five other men of similar build and coloring. Each man had to say "Don't look at me, bitch, or I'll kill you." There were so many witnesses and victims that they had to do the lineup a second time. Almost all of them picked out Richard from the lineup. Most of them were very shaken by having to see him again and hear him say that terrible command. When the lineup was over, the victims were led to a room where all of the items taken from the home of Richard's fence were spread out on large tables. Some 2,000 items, mostly jewelry. They proceeded to identify their stolen goods. The next time Richard was taken to the courthouse, he was angry and defiant, like a powerful wild animal in chains. Initially, Alan Adashek, a public defender, represented Richard. Richard planned to plead guilty, but Adashek was doing everything in his power to prevent that. Richard was enraged at suggestions that he try an insanity plea. He was following the dictates of his lord, Satan, and no intention of renouncing them to save his skin. Finding a top notch defense lawyer for Richard was not in the cards. Marvin Belli declined, as did a couple other capable men. Richard finally insisted on having two fairly inexperienced lawyers, Arturo and Daniel Hernandez, represent him. Daniel felt they could win the case for Richard. Despite the lack of experience in capital cases, Judge Soper allowed the Hernandez brothers to handle Richard's defense. In a show of defiant victory, Richard raised his hand up for the reporters to see. He had drawn a pentagram on the palm of his hand and shouted, "Hail, Satan!" It seemed almost like an admission of guilt, since the media had so heavily covered the fact that pentagrams had been found at the murder sites. It took until March 6, 1986, for the scheduling of the preliminary hearing. When the sheriff's deputy described the mutilation of Maxine Zazzara and the removal of her eyes, Richard let out a frightening high-pitched cackle. It began to look as though Richard had reconsidered the insanity plea. Ramirez with pentagram on hand (AP/Wide World Photos) Deputy Jim Ellis was sworn in and described a statement that Richard had made to him in jail: "He stated that he killed twenty people in California, that he was a supercriminal, that no one could catch him until he fucked up. He said he left one fingerprint behind, and that's how he got caught. He made the statement that he went to San Francisco and killed Peter Pan....I told one lady to give me all her money. She said no. I cut her and pulled her eyes out..." The statements were admissible as evidence because they were voluntary and Richard had already been read his rights and had consulted with attorneys. Richard plead not guilty to the mountain of charges against him. The case was finally given to California Supreme Court Judge Michael Tynan in November of 1986 after the lawyers for the defense had succeeded in delaying the trial as much as possible. After many reschedulings, jury selection began on July 21, 1988, more than two years after the preliminary hearing. Finally, on January 10, 1989, a jury of six Hispanics and six Afro-Americans were sworn in along with twelve alternate jurors. Halpin did an excellent job of presenting a very powerful case with much physical evidence and eye witness accounts. Richard's fingerprints, footprints, guns, face and voice identified him as the psychopath who brutally murdered, robbed and sexually assaulted men and women in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. Virtually everyone in the court was on the verge of tears as they listened to the particularly heartbreaking story that Somkid Khovananth told of being raped and humiliated in front of her young children and then finding her husband had been murdered. She pointed to Richard as the murderer. He laughed at her. Shortly afterwards, the court heard an equally terrible story from Sakina Abowath who had been widowed and raped as Somkid had. She, also, was positive in her identification of Richard. Deputy Daniel Laws was the final prosecution witness. He had guarded Richard in jail for more than a year. On October 30, Richard had called him over to his cell to show him photos of a homicide victim. Deputy Laws said, "The first picture was of a woman [Maxine Zazzara]. The photograph showed from the face down. She was nude. And the second photograph had the same woman lying on the bed with her head turned away from the camera." Ramirez in restraints (AP) "Did you ask him why he was showing you the pictures?" Prosecutor Halpin asked the deputy. "Yes, I did." "What did he say?" "He [Richard] said, 'People come up here and call me a punk and I show them the photographs and tell them there is blood behind the Night Stalker and they go away all pale'." Things were not going particularly well for the defense. On March 6, Daniel Hernandez admitted that he needed some expert help. With that in mind, he introduced Ray Clark, a very experienced trial lawyer. Clark did the best he could with an impossible situation where he had no input, cooperation or support from Richard. The defense tried to throw doubt on the evidence and eye witness accounts on a case-by-case basis, but with almost no success. They did, however, have a few good cards. One was the alibi given to Richard by his father and several family friends: that Richard was in El Paso at the time of the Bell/Lang and Kyle assaults. The other ace up their sleeve was alternate juror Cynthia Haden, who had developed an obvious crush on Richard. Eventually, Cynthia replaced one of the other jurors and the defense felt sure that she would not vote for conviction. Ramirez on trial (AP/WWP) The jury began deliberations on July 26, but had been interrupted when one of the jurors had been murdered by her boyfriend. They reached a unanimous decision on September 20: Richard Ramirez was guilty on every one of the forty-six counts. On October 3, they had voted for the death penalty. On the day of sentencing, Richard insisted reading a statement he had prepared. His voice was loud and angry: "You don't understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable. I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in all of us...I don't believe in the hypocritical, moralistic dogma of this so-called civilized society....You maggots make me sick! Hypocrites one and all...I don't need to hear all of society's rationalizations. I've heard them all before...legions of the night, night breed, repeat not the errors of the night prowler and show no mercy." Judge Tynan responded by giving Richard the death sentence nineteen times. Today, Richard Ramirez is still waiting to serve the first of his nineteen death sentences. Appeals can take many years to exhaust. He currently lives on San Quentin's Death Row. He is not afraid of dying because -- as a devout Satanist --he believes that he will have an honored place in Satan's kingdom, along with Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper and others with similar accomplishments. Richard has a great deal of time on his hands and uses it to read. His favorite subject is killers, particularly serial killers. One of the women who stood by him through his trial and afterwards was Doreen Lioy who was twenty-five when Richard was captured. Unlike most of Richard's admirers, she is an intelligent, very literate woman who works as an editor for various magazines. She found him very attractive and wanted to protect him from unfair treatment. Over a period of years, their relationship deepened and they married in 1996.