The Night Stalker

The Night Stalker

Richard Ramirez also known as "The Night Stalker" was a notorious serial killer who tormented the lives of Los Angeles residents by raping, sodomizing, murdering, and torturing random citizens of the community. Ramirez was addicted to cocaine and was a Satan worshiper. His rain of torture throughout 1985 included over 29 victims. He has already outlived some of the victims that survived his attacks. In 1985 Ramirez was captured by an angry mob of citizens.

Ramirez was born in 1960 to his Mexican immigrant parents Julian and Mercedes Ramirez. He was the youngest out of his five siblings of 3 boys and 2 girls. He grew up in El Paso, Texas, where he had a relatively normal childhood to start off with. Even though Ramirez seemed to be on a down hill spiral, his father always maintained that Ramirez was a "good boy". At the age of 12 he started to spend a lot of time with his cousin Mike, a Vietnam veteran, his cousin would show him pictures of women he had raped and tortured during his time in Vietnam. Mike would sometime take Ramirez out to the desert at night to show him how to sneak up on animals and kill them. Ramirez was taught how to use a knife and where the vital spots were on the animals. Some believe that the turning point in Ramirez's life may have been when he witnessed his cousin murder his wife. At the time Ramirez was 13 and was smoking pot with his cousin Mike when his wife came in and allegedly started to "nag" him on getting his life together and getting a job. Mike then took out a gun and shot her in the face. The blood of Mikes wife spattered onto Ramirez. After Mikes conviction Ramirez became fascinated with the photos that Mike had showed him. From being a bright young student Ramirez turned into a glue sniffing, pot smoking, bad tempered troublemaker. At the age of 15 he dropped out of school and got a job at a hotel. While working at the hotel he tied up a guest and raped her, but he was caught by her husband and was beaten by him. He was arrested and charged , but was given a lenient sentence. At this time his parents could not take anymore and sent him to live with his sister. By then Ramirez was living the life of a slacker, smoking pot and living off of convenience store junk food. Due to the high consumption of sugar his teeth began to rot which made his breath smell foul. His chronic pot smoking eventually led to several arrests for position and also for misdemeanor theft charges. He then moved to California and was arrested two times on auto theft in Pasadena in 1981 and Los Angeles in 1984. After a while he advanced from car theft to house breaks. When he first started to break into houses he would steal what ever was valuable and quickly leave, he then started to get better at it and started to get bolder and stayed longer. They say he may have stayed to watch the inhabitants sleeping in there beds. He also may have taken souvenirs like particular items that belonged to the female residents, he may have even taken photos so he can relish them later like his cousin Mike did. Then on June 28, 1984 his burglary turned into something far more evil. He entered through an open window at the Glassel Park residents into 79 year old Jennie Vincow's home. He searched her home but when he did not find anything of value, he became angry and went to her bedroom and began to stab her numerous times then eventually slit her throat. After killing her he became sexually aroused and had sex with the corpse before leaving.

On March 17, 1985, after going eight months without killing, Ramirez decided to hit again. This time he jumped 22-year-old Angela Barrio right outside her condo. He had shot the girl then kicked her out of the way to go inside her home. Her 34 year old room mate Dayle Okazaki was inside and Ramirez immediately shot and killed her. Amazingly Barrios survived the attack, because the bullet had hit the keys she held up to protect herself. Within an hour of this incident, Ramirez went into Montery Park where he jumped 30-year-old Tsai-Lian Yu. He had pulled the woman out of her car and shot several bullets into her. When the policeman found her she was still breathing, but died before the ambulance had gotten there. After all these attacks it only took three days for Ramirez to strike again, this time murdering an eight year old girl form Eagle Rock.

Ramirez claims his next victims on March 27, this time shooting Vincent Zazarra, age 64, and his wife Maxine, age 44. Mrs. Zazzara's body was mutilated with several stab wounds, a T-carving on her left breast, and her eyes were gouged out as well. These mutilations were said to have been post-mortem, according to the autopsy. Ramirez started leaving his trail behind, this time with footprints he had left in a flower bed which police had photographed and cast. He also left behind bullets at the scene which had matched bullets found at previous attacks. This is when the police realized that they were dealing with a serial killer on the loose. Just two months after killing the Zazzara couple Ramirez attacked another couple. This time 66-year-old Harold Wu was shot in the head and then his wife 63-year-old Jean Wu was punched, bound, and then violently raped. Ramirez decided to let the woman live, but the reasons are unknown why. Ramirez seemed to be killing in full throttle now and was named "The Night Stalker" by the media. He also had been leaving more clues to his identity, those who had survived his attacks described him to the police as being Hispanic, having long dark hair, and smelling foul. On May 29, 1985, Ramirez attacked 83-year-old