The serial killer who made Southern California afraid of the dark in the 1980s died Friday of natural causes instead of the death sentence to which he had been condemned.
Richard Ramirez, known as the "Night Stalker," was convicted of 13 murders as well as 30 other charges in a1984-85 crime spree that spanned from San Francisco to Orange County. Ramirez, 53, had been on death row at San Quentin State Prison and died at Marin General Hospital, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.
His nighttime murders, rapes and burglaries were known for being particularly brutal, and the seemingly random victims and satanic elements to the violence terrorized Californians for 14 months. Ramirez's notoriety didn't end there. In the following years, he frequently made headlines for outbursts in court in a case that took four years to get to a jury and cost taxpayers an estimated $1.6 million. A series of appeals followed, and his name was regularly invoked in discussions for and against the death penalty.
Those who knew Ramirez, who grew up in Texas, before the killings began described him as a loner and small-time burglar. The lanky, shaggy haired man with bad teeth listened to heavy metal music and had run-ins with the law for minor drug offenses.
In 1984 came the murder of Jennie Vincow, 79, a Glassell Park woman. She was found stabbed to death in her apartment, her throat deeply slashed.
At least 12 more murders followed. Ramirez became known for working at night in residential areas. After sneaking into a home, sometimes through an open door or window, he would approach residents in their beds with a gun. Men, he would typically shoot. Women would first be sexually assaulted, beaten and commanded to pray to Satan. Some he allowed to live, and others he killed. Before he fled, he would steal cash, jewelry and other valuables from the homes.
COMING TO O.C.
Like a bad penny, no one could tell where he would turn up next. In August 1985, the violence reached Orange County, where he raped a Mission Viejo woman and shot her boyfriend several times in the head. The gunshots to the brain left Billy Carns, now 58 and living in North Dakota, with paralysis in his left arm and foot and brain damage. Orange County prosecutors eventually dropped the charges to spare the woman from testifying at trial. Carns has no recollection of the attack.
Only an hour before attacking the little yellow house on Chrisanta Drive, Ramirez had scoped out a nearby home on Via Zaragosa. A 13-year-old boy, James Romero, heard his footsteps and then saw a man run to a car and speed out of the neighborhood. He told his father about the prowler, and they called police. Officers took their report, not knowing Ramirez would strike just a mile away.
The information, though, led police to Ramirez's abandoned car, where they found a fingerprint. The print found a match in the state's new computerized fingerprint system, and the name of the Night Stalker was finally revealed.
When Ramirez tried to steal a car days later in East Los Angeles, residents grabbed him and began beating him – then recognized the man as the serial killer who had terrorized the region for months. According to a Los Angeles Times article from the time, when police arrived, Ramirez told them, "Thank God you came."
YEARS IN COURT
At his arraignment, Ramirez shouted "Hail Satan" in the crowded courtroom. It would be the first in a series of bizarre turns of events as he was brought to justice.
The case was marked by delays, and Ramirez would later argue that his attorneys were incompetent. He was removed from one hearing after shouting obscenities at a judge. One of the jurors was killed by her boyfriend, who then shot himself. Court documents showed that Ramirez had bragged to police that he loved blood in the killings and that he hung a photograph of a nude dead woman in his jail cell. A sheriff's deputy testified he was put on suicide watch shortly after his arrest when satanic symbols scrawled in blood were found in his cell.
One by one, however, surviving victims identified Ramirez as the Night Stalker and 1989, he was found guilty of 43 charges.
In the years that followed, Ramirez continued to be notorious. He received visits from multiple women, and in 1993 married one of his admirers.
The years also brought a series of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to review his death sentence in 2007.
Ramirez is the 59th death-row inmate to die of natural causes since California reinstated capital punishment in 1978. Thirteen have been executed in California, and 28 have died from suicide or other causes. Today, 735 offenders are waiting for their death sentences.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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