Richard Ramirez: How His Cousin Taught Him How To Kill Pt. 1

Summary

America's Most Infamous Crimes with Katie Ring
Richard Ramirez: How His Cousin Taught Him How To Kill Pt. 1
Release Date: July 14, 2026
Host: Katie Ring

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Episode Overview

This first installment of a three-part series explores the formative years and influences behind Richard Ramirez, notoriously known as "The Night Stalker." Host Katie Ring delves deep into Ramirez's violent upbringing, his traumatic influences―most crucially his cousin Miguel, a Vietnam veteran―and his early slide from troubled child to predatory criminal. The episode seeks to understand the "how" behind Ramirez's transformation, examining the intersection of abuse, neurological trauma, and dark mentorship that ultimately shaped one of America’s most terrifying serial killers.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Richard Ramirez’s Traumatic Childhood

• Violent, Religious Upbringing in El Paso (03:26-04:47):

  • Born to devout Catholic Mexican immigrants, Richard is described as a withdrawn, anxious child comforted by his mother but terrorized by his violent father, Julian.
  • All five children suffered medical problems believed to stem from factory chemical exposure; compounded by a household wracked by abuse where "the rest of the family would hide or pray" during Julian's violent episodes.
  • Notably, Julian would self-harm in extreme ways after beating his children.
    • "Once, after beating the boys, he watched his father pick up a hammer and smash himself in the head with it." (05:07)

• Early Head Injuries & Health Issues (04:48-05:51):

  • At age 2, a dresser fell on Richard, nearly killing him; at age 5, a park swing inflicted another serious head injury, leading to epilepsy.
  • He endured seizures, nightmares, memory blackouts, and social withdrawal throughout early adolescence.
  • Music provided a rare comfort, but wasn’t enough to keep him from isolation.

Negative Role Models: Miguel & “The Moment”

• Miguel—The War Hero Turned Dark Mentor (06:26-09:16):
  • Miguel, a Green Beret home from Vietnam, becomes Richard’s idol.
  • Instead of positive mentorship, Miguel "introduced his younger cousin, who wasn’t even a teenager yet, to marijuana," and regaled him with lurid tales of wartime atrocities—including torture, mutilation, and sexual assaults he committed and documented via Polaroids.
  • "Miguel even put a kind of creed to it that holding power over another person’s life...was the closest a man could come to being a God." (08:12)
  • Miguel murders his wife Jesse in front of 13-year-old Richard and is found not guilty by reason of insanity, leaving Richard more adrift and traumatized.

Early Crimes, Missed Interventions, and Slide into Darkness

• First Sexual Assault & Law Enforcement Failure (11:49-13:20):

  • At 14, while working at a Holiday Inn, Richard breaks into a woman’s room and assaults her, but faces no criminal consequences after her husband intervenes and the couple leaves town.
  • "Richard walked away from a violent sexual assault at 14, with no real consequence at all. And for the next few years, he drifted." (13:19)

• Escalation & Returning to Miguel (14:28-15:10):

  • After Miguel’s release from the mental hospital, he teaches Richard criminal skills, including how to burglarize homes without leaving evidence.
  • By 18, Richard flees to LA, becoming increasingly unmoored, addicted to cocaine, and entrenched in a personal form of “Satanism” rooted more in chaos and power than theology.

First Murder & The Night Stalker Pattern Emerges

• First Known Murder: Jenny Vincow (17:43-20:10):

  • On June 28, 1984, Ramirez murders and assaults 79-year-old Jenny Vincow, leaving behind fingerprints—but police have no way to link them to him.
  • "When Richard pried the screen off Jenny’s window...he left his fingerprints on it...but there was nothing to point them toward the killer." (20:01)

• Murder Methods and Psychological Descent (21:09-23:52):

  • Ramirez becomes methodical, selecting homes near freeway onramps, choosing victims at random, and arming himself with a .22 caliber revolver for “clean” killings.
  • "Young or old, in small houses or mansions, men and women, anyone behind an unsecured door was a potential target." (23:01)

The Night of St. Patrick's Day: Escalation to Serial Killing

• Attacks on Maria Hernandez, Dale Okazaki, & Veronica Yu (23:53-25:35):
  • March 17, 1985: Ramirez follows Maria Hernandez home, attempts to kill her (she survives by playing dead), and fatally shoots her roommate, Dale Okazaki.
  • Later the same night, he kills Veronica Yu after pulling her from her car at a red light.
  • The randomness and lack of motive stymie police, as cases cross jurisdictions and the “Valley Intruder” moniker emerges.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "For me, one of the most unsettling things about Richard’s dad is that after he hurt his kids...he would punish himself in very extreme ways."
  —Katie Ring (05:05)

• "Miguel didn’t just describe brutality. He made it sound powerful, glamorous even."
  —Katie Ring (07:45)

• "At 14, he committed a serious violent sexual assault. He got beaten and hospitalized, which frankly was the only consequence he ever faced. And it came from the victim’s husband, not the system."
  —Katie Ring (28:53)

• "Miguel handed him both halves. The permission, the normalization, and the toolkit. I really don’t think you can understand Richard Ramirez without understanding Miguel."
  —Katie Ring (27:41)

• "What he called Satanism wasn’t actually Satanism. It was his own version of faith he created to justify his actions."
  —Katie Ring (29:58)

• "That randomness, a killer with no link to his victims, striking without warning, was exactly what would make the months ahead so terrifying for the people of Los Angeles."
  —Katie Ring (21:48)

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Deep Dive: Listener Q&A Segment

On Brain Damage and Psychopathy (25:44–27:34)

• Katie, who discloses her own epilepsy, details relevant brain science:
  • Amygdala (fear/empathy), prefrontal cortex (impulse, morality), and hippocampus (learning from consequences) are all linked to psychopathic traits when structurally or functionally abnormal.
  • Genetics/brain injury may predispose, but trauma and environment "pull the trigger."
  • "Genes and brain damage don’t make a psychopath, but they can lay the groundwork environment. Trauma, neglect, abuse...is what tends to actually pull the trigger." (27:18)

On Miguel's Central Role (27:34–28:41)

• Miguel framed violence as "power" and provided Richard with both the ideology and practical tools for crime.

On Lack of Consequence After the 1974 Assault (28:41–29:51)

• Early non-consequence "mattered enormously," reinforcing that Ramirez could act violently and evade accountability.

On the Role of Satanism (29:51–31:41)

• Katie argues Ramirez used Satanism “as a permission structure” to justify his urges, not out of true religious conviction.

Self-Defense Advice (31:41–end)

• Practical tips: Always lock windows/doors; maintain accessible self-defense options near the bed; "these things can happen to you, but...it is much less likely to happen if you take simple precautions." (31:51)

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Important Timestamps

• Richard’s early family & childhood abuse: 03:26–05:51
• Miguel's influence & trauma: 06:26–09:16
• First sexual assault (Holiday Inn): 11:49–13:20
• Move to LA & criminal development: 14:28–16:36
• First murder (Jenny Vincow): 17:43–20:10
• St. Patrick’s Day attacks: 23:53–25:35
• Listener Q&A (brain damage, Miguel, legal consequences, Satanism, self defense): 25:44–end

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Tone and Language

Katie Ring’s narration is measured, empathetic, and factual, with particular attention paid to the emotional and systemic residues of violence, the failures of intervention, and the complexities of criminal psychology. She consistently avoids sensationalism, instead inviting empathy for victims and providing accessible psychological insights for listeners.

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Next Episode Preview

The spree is only beginning: upcoming episodes promise a closer look at Ramirez’s escalation, the ensuing citywide panic, and the manhunt that led to his capture.

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For more content and to support Crime House, listeners are encouraged to join Crime House Plus for early, ad-free episodes and bonus material.

Transcript

[Katie Ring]

Hi, listeners. Before we dive into today's episode of America's Most Infamous Crimes, I wanted to take a brief moment to tell you about a show from Crime House's sister studio, Rewind that I think you'll love. It's called Government that Doesn't Suck, hosted by professors Lindsay Cormack and Greg Jackson from History that Doesn't Suck. Ever wonder how the weather forecast on your phone is so accurate? Or how your mail still gets across the country for less than a dollar? Or who actually built the highway you drove on this morning? Each episode tells the surprising story of an American institution that you'll never look at the same way again. Listen to and follow Government that Doesn't Suck every other Monday on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or watch video episodes on YouTube.

[Crime House Announcer]

This is Crime House.

[Katie Ring]

After a childhood soaked in violence, Richard Ramirez was desperate to find a sense of belonging. But Church wasn't cutting it for him, so he looked elsewhere. And the thing he chose to believe in would help him justify some of the most brutal murders this country has ever seen. Today, I'm going back to the beginning, to the quiet, church going kid from El Paso and the obsessions that turned him into a serial killer America would come to fear. The Night Stalker. Every crime tells a story about the people involved, the system that tried to stop it, and the nation that couldn't look away. Some cases are so shocking, so deeply woven into who we are, that decades later, we're still asking, how did this happen? I'm Katie Ring and this is America's Most Infamous Crimes. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I'll take you deep into cases that have a lasting imprint on society and still haunt us today. Crime House exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House plus and get all three parts of each week's America's Most Infamous Crime stories dropped at once every Monday and ad free. You also get the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early and exclusive bonus episodes. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the America's Most Infamous Crime show page. And to help keep growing our community, be sure to rate, review and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Before I get started, please be advised that this episode contains descriptions of child abuse, sexual assault and murder. So please listen with care. This is the first of our three episode series on Richard Ramirez, one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. Today I'll talk about the violence he grew up around the cousin who shaped him and the obsession that twisted his mind and the night his killing began.

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There's never been a better time to get outside and experience the benefits of nature, discover nearby trails and explore the outdoors. Outdoors with alltrails Download the free app today and find your outside Richard Ramirez was the youngest of five kids born on February 29, 1960, in El Paso, Texas, and from the very beginning, religion was at the center of his life. Richard's parents, Julian and Mercedes, were working class Mexican immigrants and devout Catholics, and they raised all of their children in the shadow of the church. But that faith didn't make their lives any easier. All five Ramirez kids were born with medical problems ranging from respiratory trouble to bone deformities. Richard's parents came to believe that those problems came from chemical fumes Mercedes had breathed while working at a factory while she was pregnant. With all of those struggles, you'd hope their household was a nurturing one. And by all accounts, Richard found a lot of comfort with his mom. But his dad was another story. Julian expected a lot from his kids, and when they stepped out of line, he beat them. Whenever that happened, which was a lot, the rest of the family would hide or pray. Once Julian decided to get violent, nothing could stop him, not even from hurting his youngest son for breaking even the smallest rules. For me, one of the most unsettling things about Richard's dad is that after he hurt his kids, his he would punish himself in very extreme ways, richard later said. Once, after beating the boys, he watched his father pick up a hammer and smash himself in the head with it. To steer clear from his dad's temper, Richard started slipping out and making his way to a local cemetery, where he'd find a quiet spot among the headstones to be alone. Some nights he stayed there until the morning, choosing to sleep among the graves rather than going home. It says a lot that a graveyard felt calmer to him than his own house, and over time the dark and dead stopped scaring him at all. The danger wasn't just confined to Julian, either. Richard was a rough and tumble kid who had come home from school with bumps and bruises and who received serious head injuries when he was young. The first was when he was only two, when a dresser toppled over on top of him and split his forehead open, a cut that reportedly took around 30 stitches to close and nearly killed him. The second came when Richard was five, when a park swing caught him in the head and knocked him out cold, leaving a deep gash in his scalp. It was after that second injury that something new started. Richard started having seizures, which doctors would eventually recognize as epilepsy. He was already an anxious, restless kid, and the seizures only made it worse. His mom took him to doctor after doctor, but none of them seemed especially worried. They told her he'd grow out of it, but he didn't. The seizures kept coming, and the sweet boy who loved music slowly turned into a withdrawn, paranoid kid. He'd stare into space for long stretches. Sometimes, when the family was watching television, Richard would leap out of his chair, screaming that the monsters on the screen were coming for him. He also wet the bed well into his adolescence, way longer than most kids do. He was plagued by nightmares and restlessness he couldn't put into words. And the older he got, the more those nights seemed to wear on him. He started experiencing memory blackouts, too, Gaps where he couldn't account for what he'd done. Those blackouts followed him to school, and they cost him. When he tried out for the middle school football team, the episodes got him cut. For someone who already struggled to make friends, that was a hard hit. Richard pulled away from other kids and started spending most of his time alone. Through all of it, one thing stayed a love of music. Even as he pulled away from the people around him, it was one of the few things that still seemed to reach him. But that wasn't enough to bring Richard out of his shell. He was hungry for someone who understood him. And there was one person he looked up to more than anyone. An older cousin named Miguel. On paper, Miguel seemed exactly like the kind of role model a struggling kid needed. He was in his 20s, a Green Beret who'd served two tours in Vietnam and came home with medals. To the Ramirez family, he was a war hero. Miguel had come home from overseas when Richard was around 12, right around the time he was most desperate for someone to look up to. To a lonely, anxious boy like Richard, Miguel was magnetic. He was older and tougher than anyone else in Richard's orbit. He'd seen the world and come Back from a war. And he seemed to take a real interest in his young cousin. Richard hung on his every word, and Miguel was more than happy to have an audience. Unfortunately, Miguel was actually the most dangerous person Richard could have been spending time with. He introduced his younger cousin, who wasn't even a teenager yet, to marijuana. While they got high together, Miguel told him stories. Not war stories, the way most veterans tell them. Miguel bragged about the worst things he'd done overseas, like torturing and mutilating enemy soldiers and assaulting and killing Vietnamese women. And he had proof. Miguel carried polaroids of his victims, including one of himself posing with a woman's severed head. And he showed them to his young cousin. Miguel didn't just describe brutality. He made it sound powerful, glamorous even. According to Richard's biographer, Miguel even put a kind of creed to it that holding power over another person's life, deciding who lived and who died, was the closest a man could come to being a God. And with no one around to tell Richard otherwise, the things Miguel described stop being horrifying and started being something to admire. Richard wasn't under Miguel's influence for long, though. On May 4, 1973, when Richard was 13, he was hanging out at Miguel's place when Miguel and his wife Jesse got into a massive fight. Richard could never recall what the argument was about, but he remembered one detail clearly. For some reason, Miguel kept a.38 caliber pistol in the refrigerator. At the height of the argument, Miguel calmly took it out and pointed it at Jesse. She dared him to pull the trigger, and he did. Jesse died, but Miguel never went to prison for it. He was found not guilty of her murder by reason of insanity. His defense tied the killing to a trauma he'd brought home from Vietnam. And instead of a prison cell, he was committed to a Texas state mental hospital. Still, a 13 year old had just watched the cousin he idolized shoot his own wife to death. And losing that connection with Miguel only left Richard feeling more adrift than ever.

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[Katie Ring]

Whatever grief Richard felt from what happened with Miguel and his wife, he kept it inside him. That kind of trauma is hard to fathom. And to cope with it, he moved from marijuana to harder drugs, including lsd. And rather than look for spiritual guidance at church, Richard started reading about Satanism and the occult, which in his mind, blessed exactly the kind of violence and sex Miguel had described. A few months after the shooting, Richard was sent to live with his older sister Ruth and her husband Roberto. It seemed like maybe Roberto could be a new role model for Richard. But that wasn't the case. Turns out his new brother in law liked to roam the neighborhood at night and peer into women's windows. And he brought Richard long. Richard's worldview was turning into something unspeakable. The cruelty Miguel had glorified, the power the occult seemed to promise, the violence he'd been steeped in since birth, it all pointed in the same dark direction. Before long, school stopped mattering to him. Richard dropped out in the ninth grade and took a maintenance job at a local Holiday Inn. The job made him more independent, which wasn't a good thing. It also handed him keys and access to the building after hours. There were always women coming and going at the hotel, and Richard couldn't stop himself from spying on them in their rooms. He started fantasizing about the women he watched. And some of those fantasies turned violent. In 1974, when he was 14, Richard watched a woman in her 20s check in. That night, he followed her to her room and slipped inside while she was in the shower. When she came out, he wrestled her down and tied her up. But before he could go any further, the woman's husband walked in. The husband beat Richard so badly that when the police arrived, he had to be taken to the hospital. He was so battered that his mom and sister barely recognized him. Richard fed them a lie. He claimed the woman had invited him in and that her husband had simply caught them together and lost his temper. They believed him, the Richard they thought they knew would not never hurt someone. So they brought him home and nursed him back to health. The couple he'd attacked left town and never pressed charges. Richard walked away from a violent sexual assault at 14, with no real consequence at all. And for the next few years, he drifted. The attack hadn't scared him straight. And with Miguel still locked away, there wasn't anyone pushing him in any direction at all. He leaned harder on drugs, kept up with late night prowling, and sank further into petty crime around El Paso. To the adults in his life, he looked like a solen teenager who'd lost his way. None of them could see the shape of what was forming underneath. And things got worse. In late 1977, when Richard was 17 and Miguel was released from the state hospital, the two of them picked up right where they'd left off. This time, Miguel went from talking to Richard about violence to teaching him how to do it. He showed his little cousin how to move without making a sound, how to slip into a house undetected, and how to get out without leaving a trace. Richard put those lessons to work burglarizing houses across El Paso. And over the next couple of years, he built a reputation in the local underworld as someone who would steal anything. Before long, El Paso started to feel small. In 1978, just after he turned 18, Richard got on a bus to Los Angeles. One of his older brothers already lived there, and he'd told Richard about a city full of money and beautiful people. A place where a young man could disappear into the crowd and do whatever he wanted. It was in the City of Angels that Richard Ramirez would finally embrace his demons. For the first few years in la, Richard did more More of what he'd done in El Paso. He stole to get by, drifting through cheap downtown motels, never settling anywhere for long. He gravitated to places in skid row where a few dollars bought a bed and nobody asked questions. He neglected his health and his drug use, fueled mostly by cocaine, also left his teeth rotting and gapped. He barely cleaned himself and the combination of bad teeth and even worse hygiene and gave him a stench so memorable that later witnesses would describe it as one of the things they couldn't forget about him. Through it all, he slid deeper into a private world organized around the devil. The book at the center of it all was the Satanic Bible. It was meant to be provocative, but Richard treated it as scripture. In its pages, he heard the same message Miguel had taught him. That strength meant taking whatever you wanted, and that mercy was for the weak. By the summer of 1984, whatever was happening inside Richard's head had turned him into something truly dangerous. And that June, he crossed a line that he could never come back from. Late on the night of June 28th, the 24 year old was moving through the Glassell park area on the northeast side of la. He'd spent his last bit of cash on cocaine and was looking for an easy way to get more. That's when he noticed a house with an open window. Richard had a pair of gardening gloves on him, but the screen wouldn't give while he was wearing them. So he peeled them off and pried it loose with his bare hands, then climbed inside. The home belonged to 79 year old Jenny Vincow. She lived alone and didn't have anything worth stealing. When Richard realized his break in was a bust, something in him turned. He pulled a hunting knife from his pocket, crept into the bedroom where Jenny was sleeping and stabbed her to death before she understood what was happening. Then he sexually assaulted her. When it was over and the rage drained out of him, he seemed to grasp what he'd done. And he ran, jumping into his car and begging Satan to protect him. Jenny's son Jack discovered her body the next day. The scene was so brutal that it would stay with investigators who worked it, but there was nothing to point them toward the killer. Or at least that's what they thought. When Richard pried the screen off Jenny's window to climb inside, he left his fingerprints on it and investigators lifted them. The trouble, though, was the era in 1984, there was no computer system that could take a fingerprint and search it against millions of others. A print was only useful if you already had a suspect to compare it to. So Jenny Vinkow's murder went cold and those prints from her window screen went into a file. A piece of the puzzle that wouldn't mean a thing for more than a year. As far as Richard was concerned, Satan had come through for him. There was nothing connecting Richard to Jenny Vinkow. He hadn't singled her out for any reason beyond an open window and the terrible luck of being home. That randomness, a killer with no link to his victims, striking without one warning or pattern, was exactly what would make the months ahead so terrifying for the people of Los Angeles. After killing Jenny Van Cow in the summer of 1984, Richard started to feel invincible. All thanks to what he believed was Satan's protection. Unfortunately, he did have a lot of luck on his side. Four months after murdering Jenny, he didn't kill again. At least not in any case that's ever been tied to him. He went back to what he knew best, stealing, drifting and feeding his drug habit. And in mid December of 1984, Richard was pulled over and arrested for driving a stolen car. The police took his photograph and his fingerprints, held him briefly, and then released him with orders to appear in court. He never showed that booking would turn out to matter more than anything else that happened to him that year. The mugshot and the full set of fingerprints went into the state's records and stayed there. Richard had no idea, and neither did the police, that California now held proof of exactly who he was, sitting in a file, waiting for the day someone thought to pull it. But it doesn't look like anyone chased him down over the stolen car. It was a low level offense and not worth going after Richard for it. And it wasn't his first brush with the law. Richard had been arrested before for small things like theft. And each time he'd slipped back into the city without much trouble. To the police, he wasn't anything more than a petty offender. That was about to work in his favor. In the months after murdering Jenny Vinkow, the pull to Killigan had only sharpened. And this time, Richard wanted to be smarter about it. He thought back to Miguel and the soldier's lesson that you kill cleanly, with precision. So Richard made changes. He gave up the hard drug so his head would be clear. He wanted to be efficient. And to do that, he bought himself a.22 caliber revolver. A small, quiet weapon, the kind that wouldn't wake a whole neighborhood. He also developed a method. Richard favored houses close to freeways, the kind of place he could slip out of and disappear onto an on ramp. Within minutes, he looked for an unlocked window or a door left open on a warm night. And he didn't confine himself to one kind of neighborhood or one kind of victim. Young or old, in small houses or mansions, men and women, anyone behind an unsecured door was a potential target. It was that absence of a pattern that would make him so hard to catch. He spent the next few months planning, learning which neighborhood sat closest to the freeways, which windows tended to stay open, and how a quiet residential street looked and sounded in the dead hours after midnight. Then, on March 17, 1985, on St Patrick's Day, he decided it was time. That night, Richard stole a car and turned the radio up loud, blasting AC DC's highway to Hell. That same ACDC record had another song Richard played on a loop, a track called Night Prowler, about a Figure who slips into a house while its occupants sleep. He was convinced it had been written about him by Satan himself. With the music blaring, he pulled onto the freeway and prayed for the devil to send him a victim. He cruised the freeways for hours, hunting certain that sooner or later the devil would put someone in his path. And eventually he spotted a gold Camaro. Behind the wheel was a young woman named Maria Hernandez. Just 22 years old. She was on her way home from her boyfriend's house. Richard followed her into the suburb of Rosemead, all the way to the condo she shared with a roommate. After Maria pulled into the driveway, Richard parked nearby, put on an AC DC cap and crept up behind her at the gate. As she was unlocking the gate, Maria heard something, turned, and found a man walking toward her with a gun. She screamed and Richard fired. What happened next was almost impossible. Maria threw her hands up and the key she was holding deflected the bullet. She dropped to the ground anyway and played dead while he stepped over her and went inside. Maria's roommate, 34 year old Dale Okazaki, was hiding behind the kitchen counter. Richard found her and shot her dead. On his way out, he noticed Maria was still alive. She lifted her arms and begged him to let her live. And he did. Although it wasn't out of mercy, Richard was simply too startled by her to react. So he stepped past her, got back in the car and drove off. He left something behind in that garage. His AC DC hat. It had come off in all of the chaos. And when police processed the scene, they recovered it. It wasn't much, but it was something real. An object the killer had worn and left at the scene. But for now, they had no clue that Richard was the killer. And he wasn't. Finished for the night, restless and full of adrenaline, Richard turned the music up again and drove. In nearby Monterey park, he spotted 30 year old Veronica Yu. Driving home, he decided she'd be next. Veronica noticed the car tailing her and pulled pulled over to let him pass. But they ended up side by side at a red light. Richard got out, walked to her window and dragged her from her car. When she fought him, he shot and killed her, then fled. The attacks had crossed city lines. Rosemead and Monterey park answered to different police departments. And for a while, investigators didn't even realize the cases belonged to the same man. There was no robbery, no connection between Richard and the woman he'd chosen, no pattern anyone could point to. And while Maria Hernandez had gotten a good look at him, it wasn't enough for a positive id. The only connection was that the same kind of gun, a.22 caliber, had been used in both killings, although nobody had realized that yet. Because these early attacks clustered in the San Gabriel Valley, the stretch of suburbs east of downtown Los Angeles, reporters started calling him the Valley Intruder. The killings were terrifying. Nothing about them made sense, and the man responsible was already thinking about his next move. Over the months to come, the killing would escalate into one of the most terrifying crime sprees in American history, and it would take a relentless detective, a single fingerprint, and an entire community to bring it to an end. At the end of each episode, I'd like to take a moment to answer any questions you may have about the case and share my thoughts, so make sure to comment below.

[Self Defense Instructor]

Richard had multiple head injuries as a kid, plus a seizure disorder that set in during childhood. How much do you really buy the idea that his brain explains what he became?

[Katie Ring]

This one is especially interesting to me because I actually have epilepsy. I'm very lucky because I rarely have seizures and mine wasn't the direct result of a head injury. Obviously, having epilepsy and experiencing brain damage will not make you a psychopath, but there are studies about how damage to certain areas of the brain can have significant effects. Research has now identified several specific regions where abnormalities consistently show up in psychopathic individuals, each linked to distinct behavioral traits. The amygdala is one of the most studied. Psychopaths tend to have a smaller, less active amygdala, which helps explain their lack of fear, emotional detachment, and inability to empathize. They show reduced activation when exposed to fearful or distressing images and struggle to recognize fear and sadness in others. The prefrontal cortex is another area of the brain that governs impulse control, decision making, and moral reasoning. Psychopaths tend to exhibit reduced activity and structural abnormalities here, contributing to poor impulse control, risk taking, and a lack of long term planning. The hippocampus, which handles memory and contextual learning, also shows reduced gray matter in psychopathic individuals. This may contribute to their difficulty learning from consequences, a key reason why punishment often fails to deter psychopathic behavior the way it does in others. So my viewpoint is that genes and brain damage don't make a psychopath, but they can lay the groundwork environment. Trauma, neglect, abuse, early exposure to violence is what tends to actually pull the trigger.

[Self Defense Instructor]

Let's talk about that cousin. In a lot of tellings, Miguel is almost a footnote, but you clearly think he's central. Why is that?

[Katie Ring]

I think Miguel is One of the most important people in this story. And people tend to skip over him. Think about what he gave a vulnerable 12 and 13 year old. First, a worldview. He took the worst things a human being can do. Mutilation, sexual violence, killing. And he framed them as proof of power. He even had photos. To a kid who already felt powerless and rejected, that can be intoxicating under the right conditions. On top of that, Richard physically watched Miguel murder his wife at 13 years old. There's a difference between knowing that fact and witnessing it personally up close by the one adult you admire. And later, when Miguel got out, he came back and taught Richard practical skills. Like how to break into a house without getting caught. So Miguel handed him both halves. The permission, the normalization, and the toolkit. I really don't think you can understand Richard Ramirez without understanding Miguel.

[Self Defense Instructor]

The 1974 hotel attack. He's 14, he's caught in the act and then nothing happens. No charges. The couple just leaves town. How much does that early non consequence matter?

[Katie Ring]

I think it matters enormously. And it's one of the most frustrating moments in the whole timeline. At 14, he committed a serious violent sexual assault. He got beaten and hospitalized, which frankly was the only consequence he ever faced. And it came from the victim's husband, not the system. Then he lied to his own family and they believed him. The couple chose not to press charges, which I don't blame them for, even if it's self defense. Sometimes if you beat someone that badly, you're the one who can go to jail. Especially if they believe Richard's story. But from a behavioral standpoint, that's a textbook misintervention. This was the exact window where treatment, supervision or accountability might have made a difference when he was young. And the pattern wasn't fully set. Instead, the lesson he absorbed was I can do this and walk away. And he spent the next decade proving himself right because this was not the first time the legal system let him off.

[Self Defense Instructor]

And the Satanism, do you think that was a genuine belief or a costume he put on to justify what he already wanted to do?

[Katie Ring]

I think it was a genuine belief. But I also think Richard didn't actually understand or follow the theology of Satanism. Rather, I think he took the shock value and edginess of it to create a kind of personal mythology that functioned more as a permission structure than a genuine theological framework. People who don't know about Satanism view it as simply the antithesis of Christianity. Christians and other religions that believe in God believe that things like theft, rape, and murder are sins. So if you believe in the opposite, then you may believe those things are okay and actually encouraged, which is technically incorrect under Satanism. So I think Richard used what he called Satanism to externalize his violence as something cosmic or destined rather than something he was choosing. Richard didn't find Satanism and then turn violent. He was already fantasizing about violence, already assaulting people. And then he reached for a belief system that told him those urges were not just okay but holy. So I think it was a genuine belief. But what he called Satanism wasn't actually Satanism. It was his own version of faith he created to justify his actions. Whatever it was, he clearly leaned into it for years and we'll see in the next episodes how far he took it, the things he made victims say, and what he left at the scenes. I think it's important to note that this was happening during what the country would later call the Satanic panic, when fear of the devil was everywhere. And when I say edginess, this is what I mean because everyone was panicking about it. But I think Richard liked going against the grain. But also my honest opinion was Satan didn't make Richard Ramirez do anything. Richard was looking for a reason and he found one that fit.

[Self Defense Instructor]

You're a self defense instructor. Is there anything in how he operated, even this early, that you want listeners to take away?

[Katie Ring]

I always want to be careful here because the only person responsible for what happened to his victims is Richard Ramirez. That said, I do want to share some tips that are simple and actionable that you can do for your own safety. The biggest thing is securing your house and knowing that these things can happen to you, but it is much less likely to happen if you take simple precautions like locking your doors and especially windows, even when it's hot. Also, as we saw with one of his victims, locking your car doors is extremely important. I also recommend having whatever self defense tool you're comfortable having accessible near your bed. I'll have more of these plus a lot more of my thoughts in the next two episodes because the spree and the hunt for the man behind it are only just beginning. Thanks so much for joining me. For this episode. To enhance your listening experience, join Crime House plus and get all three parts of each week's America's Most Infamous crime stories dropped at once every Monday and ad free. You'll also get the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early and exclusive bonus episodes. To join go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts tap try free at the top of the America's most infamous crime show page. Come back tomorrow for our next episode on Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker.