Richard Ramirez the "Night Stalker"

Picture sent to me by Richard Ramirez

     by Elizabeth Hall

    We will start this blog with my personal favorite serial killer, The Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. I had the fortunate experience of becoming his pen pal with my daughter shortly before he died. I have posted pictures of one of the letters and two pictures that he sent me, one of himself and one of his drawings. Richard was the first serial killer I became aware of because I was 15 when he was he was operating on the streets of California, although I lived in Louisiana at the time.

   

    It was the satanic aspects of his crimes that drew me in because I could not wrap my mind around how someone could do those things to someone else, even if he was tying Satan into it! Later I read Phillip Carlo's book  The Night Stalker which gave me just as many questions as answers. This led to a lifelong fascination with human behavior and of course serial killers and psychology.

First page of letter sent to me by Richard Ramirez

    The last child born into a family of immigrant, hard working, religious parents, Richard made his way into our world on February 29, 1960.  He has four older siblings, three brothers and a sister.. To make ends meet, and to have a better life for their family, Julian and Mercedes Ramirez often worked long hours, which kept  them away from the home. Julian,  Ramirez’s father, had a very bad temper.  Because his parents were rarely, home Richard, was left in the care of his older siblings and idolized his brothers.   His brothers’ favorite pastime, unfortunately, happened to be burglarizing neighborhood homes.  Richard, following their example, learned the trade by  performing tasks such as looking out while his brothers would  enter the houses. Richard also had a lot of contact with his cousin Mike, a disturbed Vietnam veteran, whom Richard idolized even more than his brothers. 

    Cousin Mike spent hours with Richard, discussing how he violently raped women in Vietnam. They spent time riding around in Mike’s car smoking pot or in his garage where he kept pictures of the disturbing deeds that he committed while in the military in Vietnam.  Their main topic of discussion was always  sex and violence.  Richard’s first thoughts about sex were developing during these conversations.  Mike had changed so much because of his experiences in Vietnam that upon his return he and his wife seldom got along. .  One day when Richard was 11, they got into an argument, and Mike shot her in the face right in front of Richard and  their two kids.  Later, Richard’s father took him back to the scene to collect some personal items, and the blood evidence was still present.

    When Richard was 17, his mother kicked him out of the house after becoming fed up with his marijuana use, rock music, and getting into trouble with his brothers. At 18, disillusioned with religion (his mother was a devout Catholic) and atheistic, he left his home town of El Paso, Texas. He was headed for California, where he would later be arrested for burglary. While he was in jail he was housed with a cellmate that was a Satanist. He at that time decided that since God would never condone his actions that he would begin worshipping Satan, who most certainly approved of his thoughts and actions. He in fact thought that by being a criminal he was working his way to a better place in hell. From here it was not a far leap to murder, although his first one was not intended to happen. 

Second page of letter sent by Richard Ramirez

    His first murder was intended to be just another burglary, however when he entered Jennie Vincow's apartment he found that there was nothing worth stealing.  Richard committed burglaries to feed his cocaine and marijuana habits. When he found nothing worth stealing he became angry, frustrated, deciding to take her most valuable asset, her life.  This crime was in June of 1984. The following year in 1985, he went on to murder 12 more people with various and changing modus operandi.

   Some victims were strangled, some stabbed, some shot, and most gruesome, some by slashing their throats, and some by simply beating them to death with whatever he found. Richard aspired to be the best serial killer there ever was, again, because he thought that by accomplishing this he would earn an elevated spot in hell, hopefully at the side of Lucifer himself. No one but Richard knows whether he fulfilled that fantasy, as he passed away in 2013 from secondary complications of his illness B-cell Lymphoma, along with his other ailments stemming from chronic substance abuse including chronic Hepatitis C. By the time he was arrested and sent to San Quentin's death row he was charged with 63 crimes, 13 murders and an array of other crimes including attempted murder, rape, and sexual assault. He was 53 when he died, and gave no indication in his letters that he was sick. 

        His letters were surprisingly normal with a few creepy questions such as: 

• What were five items that I carried in my purse?
•  Would we send him pictures of us?          

Scooby Doo drawn by Richard Ramirez

    Other than a very few things like that he wanted to know more normal things about some of the things he was interested in before he got arrested besides serial murder such as what type of car we drove and what type was our favorite. It seems he was interested in cars because he described the one he had before he was caught. Off the top of my head I cannot remember what kind it was but you could tell he was interested in cars. He wanted to know our birthdays so he could send us a card which I think he did. 

    Because this is the first serial killer I ever corresponded with, I was rather surprised at how normal the letters were and even his refusal to answer my daughter's question when she asked him if he was still a Satanist because he said she was too young to discuss stuff like that (she was 12). To date this is the only serial killer I have corresponded with, however I hope to change that with the launch of this blog and pick a few to correspond with again. I think it will make for some good material for this blog! I also intend to post academic views on this topic, besides just talking about different serial killers, since I spent from 2010 -2013 studying them while pursuing my degree because the Criminal Justice program that I was in based every subject even English on your degree path. Welcome to the  Studying Serial Killer's Blog brought to you by Criminology & Justice Digital Media U.S.!