Richard Ramirez, the
serial killer known as “the Night Stalker” who terrorized Los Angeles
County and was convicted in 1989 of 13 murders, died Friday, California
corrections officials said. He was 53.
Mr. Ramirez died of natural causes at a hospital in Marin County, the department said in a statement. No details were released.
Sentenced to death, Mr. Ramirez, who was housed at San Quentin
prison, was one of 735 offenders facing execution and one of 59 who have
died from natural causes since capital punishment in California was
reinstated in 1978.
Mr. Ramirez was a chilling figure during his crime spree in 1984 and 1985 and throughout his lengthy trial. When he was sentenced on Nov. 8, 1989, the devil-worshiping Mr. Ramirez told a judge, the jurors and a packed courtroom that included some of his victims’ relatives: “You don’t understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience.”
He vowed: “I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan agreed with the husky-voiced Mr. Ramirez on one point: His crimes, which included gouging out a victim’s eyes, were “beyond any human understanding.”
In addition to the murders, Mr. Ramirez was convicted of 30 felonies, including burglaries and sexual assaults. He was apprehended in 1985 by angry East Los Angeles residents as he attempted to steal a car.
Born Feb. 29, 1960, in El Paso, Richard Ramirez was the fifth and final child of Santa Fe Railway worker Julian Tapia Ramirez and his wife, Mercedes. Neighbors said the boy’s parents were strict and old-fashioned, and Richard grew up going to church with his parents.
“He’s really just a poor boy who was raised to believe in God,” his father told a reporter in 1989. The elder Ramirez said drugs had helped lead his son astray.
As a teenager, Mr. Ramirez gained a reputation as a petty thief and became fascinated with the art of burglary and, later, Satanism, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1985. His nimbleness at thievery earned him a nickname in El Paso: “Dedos,” Spanish for “Fingers.”
Shortly before his 17th birthday, he dropped out of high school. Within a couple of years, he was drifting between El Paso and California.
He spent the summer of 1980 in the San Francisco Bay area and three years later moved to Los Angeles, where he began injecting cocaine and became more involved in Satanism, Earl Gregg Jr., who briefly lived with Mr. Ramirez in the bay area, told the Los Angeles Times in 1985.
Mr. Ramirez hung out at a bus station and roomed in cheap hotels. He also got a tattoo on his elbow, a witch’s star — a star with a circle around it.
Mr. Ramirez died of natural causes at a hospital in Marin County, the department said in a statement. No details were released.
(HOPD/AP) - Convicted killer Richard Ramirez as seen in this
June 15, 2007 photo in San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, Calif.
California corrections officials say convicted serial killer Ramirez,
known as the Night Stalker, has died.
Mr. Ramirez was a chilling figure during his crime spree in 1984 and 1985 and throughout his lengthy trial. When he was sentenced on Nov. 8, 1989, the devil-worshiping Mr. Ramirez told a judge, the jurors and a packed courtroom that included some of his victims’ relatives: “You don’t understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience.”
He vowed: “I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan agreed with the husky-voiced Mr. Ramirez on one point: His crimes, which included gouging out a victim’s eyes, were “beyond any human understanding.”
In addition to the murders, Mr. Ramirez was convicted of 30 felonies, including burglaries and sexual assaults. He was apprehended in 1985 by angry East Los Angeles residents as he attempted to steal a car.
Born Feb. 29, 1960, in El Paso, Richard Ramirez was the fifth and final child of Santa Fe Railway worker Julian Tapia Ramirez and his wife, Mercedes. Neighbors said the boy’s parents were strict and old-fashioned, and Richard grew up going to church with his parents.
“He’s really just a poor boy who was raised to believe in God,” his father told a reporter in 1989. The elder Ramirez said drugs had helped lead his son astray.
As a teenager, Mr. Ramirez gained a reputation as a petty thief and became fascinated with the art of burglary and, later, Satanism, the Los Angeles Times reported in 1985. His nimbleness at thievery earned him a nickname in El Paso: “Dedos,” Spanish for “Fingers.”
Shortly before his 17th birthday, he dropped out of high school. Within a couple of years, he was drifting between El Paso and California.
He spent the summer of 1980 in the San Francisco Bay area and three years later moved to Los Angeles, where he began injecting cocaine and became more involved in Satanism, Earl Gregg Jr., who briefly lived with Mr. Ramirez in the bay area, told the Los Angeles Times in 1985.
Mr. Ramirez hung out at a bus station and roomed in cheap hotels. He also got a tattoo on his elbow, a witch’s star — a star with a circle around it.
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