Loading summary
Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
A
The Casual Criminals podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Because Progressive offers discounts for paying in full, owning a home and more. Plus, you can count on their great customer service to help you when you need it. So your dollar goes a long way. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save on car insurance, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. So good, so good, so good.
- [00:33]
B
Spring styles are at Nordstrom Rack stores now and they're up to 60% off. Stock up and save on Rag and Bone, Madewell, Vince, All Saints, and more of your favorites.
- [00:43]
A
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
- [00:45]
B
Why do we rack for the hottest deal? Just so many good brands. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.
- [01:01]
A
This episode is brought to you by White Claw Surge. Nice choice hitting up this podcast. No surprises. You're all about diving into tastes everyone in the room can enjoy. Just like White Claw Surge. It's for celebrating those moments when connections have been made and the night's just begun. With bold flavors and 8% alcohol by volume. Unleash the night. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer Works Chicago, Illinois. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Casual Criminalist. As always, hello there. I am your casual criminalist. By casual criminalist, it means, like, not a criminalist. Absolutely. Definitely not. In no way. I mean, I watched a lot of CSI as a kid. I don't know if that counts. It doesn't. It doesn't at all. Welcome back to the show. What we do here is we've got. Oh, it's a big one today. Got a big one. One of the biggies. I was determined to do more of the biggies, which feels like a really strange way to refer to horrible serial killers. But to hit some of the big ones in 2022, because I kind of avoided them because I always wanted to, like, touch on, you know, new ones, lesser heard of stuff. But also I realized people love the classics again. So. Simon, classics biggies. These were horrible 20th century serial killers. You know, we got Ted Bundy coming up. That's gonna be grim. Ed Gein. That's. Even though he killed less People, he just did it in such a horrible way that it's like, oh, my God, Ed, what the F, mate? This one is Richard Ramirez. Also another one, I think. You know, there's no way I'm naming this video anything other than the Night Stalker, because that's just the name I think the press gave him. And definitely the name that we're gonna use for this episode because, I mean, it's a really. It's a solid name. And a big thank you to new writer Jennifer. I know that's confusing by think, Simon, you just made a mistake. Jen does the editing. She adds the audio and the video and the stuff afterwards that's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, guess what? Today's episode, written by. I don't know if Jennifer goes by Jen, but written by Jen, edited by Jed, read by Simon. That's right. Different people, though, especially me, because, well, I got a different name. No one's confused. Let's just get into the episode. Good Lord, it's a cold read. If you're new here, I've never read it before. We explore it together. Enough introduction. Off we go. It's February 29, 1960. The U.S. american News is filled with a Soviet ice hockey player helping their domestic team win. And the same day, the city of Agadir, Morocco, will be shaken by an earthquake measuring almost six on the Richter scale. These are all just sort of news events that you think will be forgotten, but because, you know, in a podcast in 2022, here we are setting the scene with them. But Mercedes Ramirez could not care about any of that. The El Paso, Texas, resident is about to give birth to her fifth child, another son. She'd been praying for a healthy child since she found out one was on its way. The deeply religious parents often looked to the Bible for guidance rather than a pediatrician. Mrs. Ramirez immigrated from the US to Mex. Nope, that's the wrong way round to the US From Mexico and. And has been working at a boot factory to feed herself and her increasing number of offspring. As you may have guessed, the working conditions in the factory are far from safe, especially for women carrying children. Oh, it's the 1960s and immigrants. And again, I feel like I brought up this exact same thing in a recent video. But it's like, yeah, conditions are better now. Like immigrants in the us they don't have to work in factories. And I'm like, wait, you don't know anything about this, Simon. You don't know if that's changed or if it's better or. I just Imagine there are more labor laws, but there's a lot of illegal immigration, Right? And I mean, if you're an illegal immigrant, I know that labor laws should apply to you, but they're just not going to, are they? I don't know how this works. Let's stop talking. Her existing children, Robert, Ruth. Oh, I. Obviously, I don't know if she's an illegal immigrant. She just says she's an immigrant, so I'm just going to assume she's not. I don't know why I would assume that she was. I'm definitely getting cancelled. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Her existing children, Robert, Ruth, Reuben and Joseph had all entered this world with birth defects caused by the toxic chemical fumes their mother was exposed to while working at the factory. Well, now I just feel even worse. But her prayers were answered and Ricardo Leyva Munoz Ramirez was born without any complications or visible deformities. Making a monster. Now, shortly after the subject of today's episode was born, we already are entering familiar casual criminalist territory. Oh, I know where we're going. I'm guessing Ricardo is Richard Ramirez. And I'm guessing that he did not have the most brilliant of childhoods, because bad childhoods do maketh the serial killer remember. One thing you should never inflict on your children if you don't want them to become horrible people or if you want them to be a decent human being, is abuse of any kind. I feel like we shouldn't need to say that, but here we are. Ricardo's father, Julian Ramirez, but it's pronounced a Mexican. Mexican. Spanish. Is it Julio Julian? Julian Ramirez. I'm sorry, I don't know. Just let's call him Julian. Was a Mexican. I love the name Julian, by the way. I wanted to name my kid Julian, but my wife vetoed it. She was like, I don't like it that much. And I'm like, okay, we found another name that we both like, which was nice. I don't generally mention the names of my kids in the Internet because I just. I don't know. It's their choice if they want to have private lives or not. And yeah, not important. Let's carry on. My kid's not called Julian now, you know, having been a policeman in Ciudad Juarez until leaving the country for the United States. Like many others of his countrymen, however, his qualifications were not recognized in his new home, so he was doomed to work as a mere laborer on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway. What a Dishonor. He would often growl when returning home from work. But mere complaints were on the tolerable side of the spectrum. Julian Ramirez was incredibly prone to violent outbursts and fits of rage. In addition to that, his perceived failure in finding a job similar to the one he had back in Mexico drove him to alcoholism. As we all know, alcohol hats acts as a mood amplifier. Yeah, it does. Wait, this is gonna go dark, isn't it? Because he's gonna. He's gonna be like, his mood, like my mood get amplified, and I enjoy, like, conversation and food and just, you know, socialization, all that, like, you know, stuff slightly more. Whereas I get the feeling his sort of amplification is gonna lead to him beating his kids or something, which is, you know, it can cause euphoria and a calming sense of carefreeness. This is why so many unhappy people fall victim to it and begin to abuse its effects. But not only the good emotions are reinforced. This is also true for sadness. Many people who commit suicide are under the influence of alcohol during their final moments, and in this case, anger and frustration. One day, Ruben Ramirez, one of his sons, was arrested for stealing a car. That was one of the moments his father Julian, snapped. He became enraged and started to turn to unprecedented violence to punish his son. The only detail that we know of is that Ruben developed a glue sniffing habit shortly afterwards. His brother Robert was also battling an unspecified drug addiction. At the time when this. I remember when I was at school, they were like, don't sniff glue. There were, like, posters up about, you know, don't smoke. Smoking kills. Don't sniff glue. And I was like, I never sniffed glue. I never smoked those posters. I don't think had anything to do with it. I was just like, doesn't seem particularly healthy to sniff glue, does it? That doesn't sound like a brilliant idea. And I probably also didn't understand that it got you high. So I was probably like, okay, let's not sniff glue. It's used for sticking things, isn't it? And I've never sniffed glue, and I don't think I ever will. Revolutionary. When the senior Ramirez was drunk, his anger was particularly bad. He himself had been beaten by his father and grandfather. So it's safe and sad to assume that violence ran in place. The first family, Julian Ramirez had sworn not to treat his five children the same way. But this did not include his wife, Mercedes. She was beaten by her husband, and while losing his temper with her, he also abused his children. Understandably, little Ricardo or Richard, as he was often affectionately Called became extremely scared of his father when he was just two years old. Richard Ramirez was also hit on the head by a cupboard, which was in the process of falling over, causing a large laceration on his forehead. At the age of five, he was hit on the back of the head by a swing. These two are part of a series of injuries that are more closely described by family members who would later speak to the media. Yes, he had been quite literally hit on the head as a child, which ended up causing him to experience many epileptic seizures. I have to say, like, the idea, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, you were dropped on your head as a kid. It's kind of like in popular culture, right? And it's like, yo, I've got two kids. Like, one's a baby, one's slightly older, like two years old. He's gonna be as old. And I've never dropped them, but I can definitely see a point where it's like, you know, you're throwing them around in the air, not in an abusive way, in a way, like, way. Airplanes. Woo. And they're so happy. And then, oh, my God, I dropped you on the floor and you bashed your head. And it's like, did you. Is. Are you now a serial killer? I mean, that's. Is banging your head really responsible for that? I know a guy who's had, like, many concussions. In fact, I know a couple of guys who've had many concussions. They're not violent, they're just. They're just like, yeah, I've had many concussions, and sometimes I can't think properly, but only sometimes, and it's not that bad, and I really shouldn't get any more concussions. One of them had to give up, like, this sport. He was super into, like, almost professional level at this sport. And he was like, yeah, dude, I just got too many concussions. And they said, if I play this anymore and I get another concussion, I'm gonna have, like, brain damage and not be able to work properly, like, my brain for the chance of becoming professional at this. And so he didn't do it anymore. And I'm like, that's so intense. Like, don't look. Head trauma is obviously bad, but what I'm trying to say is that neither of my friends became serial killers. They just seem to have become a tiny bit ADHD or something. His family history of issues such as head injuries and drug addiction did not end with Richard's epilepsy. His father, Julian Ramirez, was not only violent towards his family and loved ones, but also toward himself. Ruth Ramirez, Richard's only sister, remembers one particular incident to this day. Her father was attempting to install a kitchen sink all by himself, Even though he was not a bad craftsman and quite familiar with all the sorts of tools, Due to his work at the railways, he failed to connect the sink to their home's drainage pipe. Really, I feel that if you're connecting a sink, there are two things that you connect. The taps and the drain. And I know nothing about this. I am, like, the least handy person. My wife's like, can you put up that picture? And I'm like, I literally tried to put up a picture, and then it turns out, like, the wall in the apartment's just made of, like, concrete or bricks or something. So I couldn't get a drill in there. And I'm like, nah, I don't have the tools for this. You're gonna have to call someone. So someone came around and hung up all the pictures in our apartment. Years ago, I felt like slightly less of a man, but that's okay. I mean, I comforted myself in that. I paid for the handyman. Eventually becoming frustrated by his many unsuccessful attempts, Mr. Ramirez lifted a hammer from his toolbox to his head. He hit himself repeatedly on the head until blood began to pour down his face and trickle onto the kitchen floor. Good Lord. He had a history of self harm, Ruth Ramirez also recalls. But this time, it was so bad that my youngest brother, Ricky Richard, resorted to sleeping on the grounds of the nearby cemetery at night. He was always up during nighttime anyway. I heard him sneak around the house during all hours. Maybe a little bit of foreshadowing there on the sisters part. Yes, yes, yes, yes. In the year 1972, when Richard Ramirez was 12 years old, his cousin Miguel Mike Ramirez returned from serving in the Vietnam war. He was a decorated green beret and had a close bond with Richard. Are Green Berets the elite? Is that like you've got the American. The British ones are, the sas, the Americans, Navy seals, Famously, Delta Force is. It is Green berets the other one. So that's like an elite soldier. Now, you might think that Richard would share some of his bad experiences and trauma with his cousin to receive help and experience some sort of stability. But how wrong we all are. Mike Ramirez bonded with Richard, but not over advice or shared issues. Richard had been smoking cannabis since the age of 10, so they shared many joints and countless bottles of beer. But it was not only his drug supply that Mike shared with his young, impressionable cousin. You see, unsurprisingly, Miguel Ramirez, as evident by his last name, was the child of notorious abuser Julian Ramirez's brother. Making the two men related by blood. Yeah. They were cousins then. Yes. I'm sorry, it just says right up top, impressionable cousin. Obviously they're related by blood. Wait, yeah. You are related by blood to all your cousins? I've got a lot of step cousins who I'm not related to, like by blood. But then all of my regular cousins have only got two, I think. Yes, only two. Big brain. I am related to by blood. They are my mum's brother's children. My God, Simon, what is with the useless tangents today? Let's just come on, crack on now. What does this mean for young Richard? His cousin loved the war. He came home with four medals and was considered a hero. The reason for this? At one point, his platoon of 20 men faced a large group of Viet Cong. They were without a doubt outnumbered and surrounded. The Viet Cong did not show any mercy, and Miguel Ramirez and another unnamed soldier were the only ones to survive the ambush. This brave action, as he referred to it in the following praise, however, was not the sole reason for his evident enjoyment of the sheer brutality of the Vietnam War. Mike Ramirez had brought Polaroids with him, which he often showed to his cousin Richard, telling the various stories that were attached to them. Oh, God, I see. I know this is. It's not going to be like, here's me and my mates drinking beer in Vietnam. It's going to be a whole lot darker than that because. Of course it is, because this is a true crime piece and not historical thing about people coming home from war. Ah, this is not going to be good, is it? What did those Polaroids depict, you may be inclined to ask. No, no. Pictures of his fellow soldiers. Proof of loyalty, patriotism and friendship during the harsh times. Yeah, me and Jen on the same page with this one, but these guys, it's going to be something different. While the Polaroids did show harsh times, indeed, it was not Mike who suffered actually harsh times is probably the understatement of the century. Etched into the many Polaroid films were the dead bodies of women. They were no doubt Vietnamese civilians, and all of them were missing parts of their bodies. Ramirez told his cousin in vivid detail about how he raped, tortured and murdered them. Their child did not even flinch. The Vietnamese are all very superstitious, Mike informed his obviously intrigued cousin. If you lose a limb after death, you cannot go to heaven. According to him, that was the reason he mutilated Many of his victims post mortem. Dude, that is so f up. You already killed them and now you're like, I don't want them to go to heaven either, so let's remove a piece of their body. This is. You're just taking super f ed up and making it super, super f ed up, my dude. What the f AP Apologies for my language. Sometimes it's necessary. He considered it his duty as an American soldier. Dude, you don't understand what, like, I'm beginning. I'm, like, sounding patriotic on behalf of America. It's like, you don't know what it's like to be an American soldier, son. But it's like, that's not what being a soldier is about at all in any way. It's not patriotic. It's the opposite of patriotic. It's you being a massive d. His duty was to torture, dishonor, humiliate, and punish the people that his country was waging a brutal war against, both in life and after they passed away through the sheer violence that he enacted on them. He did not even want to grant them the peace of death after countless hours of agony. Having power over life and death was a high, an incredible rush. You controlled who lived and who died. It was like being God, if we believe Mike's words. He kept shrunken heads of eight of his victims and proceeded to sleep on them for the remainder of his stay in Vietnam. Ah, I don't believe those words. Make it a shrunken head. I've made a video about making shrunken heads. Really weird. And also it's extremely complicated. There's all sorts of bone removal and treatment processes and obviously you can't. It's shrinking ahead. It's complex. I don't believe this. It should be clear by now that Miguel Ramirez desired to inflict as much harm as possible on his victims behavior. His cousin seems to have copied from him and would also later exhibit in his eyes. Spoiler alert. In his eyes, Miguel could do nothing wrong. He was an authority figure to his younger cousin. Richard Ramirez would later recount these conversations with his cousin while in custody. I was not shocked by the pictures cousin Mike showed me. I was fascinated. Good old cousin Mike also trained the 12 year old Richard in jungle warfare, including how to murder silently, blend into your surroundings to become invisible, and how to burglarise all sorts of homes. I feel like cousin Mike is a bad guy. Obviously he's the worst guy in the story so far. But also the parents. There's a lack of parenting here. It's your responsibility to yo if your cousin is hanging out with. If your son or daughter is hanging out with someone like cousin Mike right now. Maybe, and I know it's not going to be very popular with them, but maybe they shouldn't be hanging out with cousin Mike. Maybe you should look into what's happening and maybe like no, no, sorry. I know it's awkward and it's going to be family drama, but it's better than making a murderer. It's us, the poor and downtrodden against them, the rich and influential, he would tell his young cousin after most of their so called exercise sessions, clearly to justify what he was teaching Richard. But Miguel Ramirez's violent tendencies did not stop after he returned home from war. The then 13 year old Richard Ramirez was staying at Miguel's house when the latter finally shot his wife Jessie, the mother of his two young sons, in the face with a revolver for entirely unknown reasons. I want to say I'm shocked by this, but this is exactly the sort of guy who would shoot someone in the face, isn't it? Again, Richard was not even remotely disgusted. Mike told him he should never say a word about what he saw. And the child just nodded and said, I swear. The same evening, Richard would silently sit at the dinner table with his family, keeping his promise to his cousin. When Miguel took Richard back to the murder scene to clear up the many large bloodstains left behind by the vicious attack, the young teenager was once again not experiencing negative feelings of any kind. No shock caused by the blood, gore and brain matter. Not a single uncomfortable sensation. The day I went back to that apartment, it was like some kind of mystical experience. You could smell the dried blood. I looked at the place where Jesse had fallen and died and I got a kind of tingly feeling. This is what Richard Ramirez would later state in court. In the ensuing trial, the jury sympathized with Miguel Ramirez because of his status as a war hero. So he was declared not guilty due to insanity and sent to a mental health facility. Um, I agree he's obviously very mentally disturbed. I don't know if I. I mean, obviously. Look, they had jury and there was a court and they deliberated. I think you should ignore the fact that he's got medals. I think that's IMM material based on these, like quick reading of these facts. He doesn't seem insane, he just does obviously need mental health care, but he's not insane to get off on murder. I really don't think. Just my opinion. While Richard used to follow Miguel everywhere, he did not follow him into treatment, which could have reversed at least some of the damage the environment during his upbringing and youth caused and led him to a better path in life. Around that time, Richard Ramirez started getting sexually aroused by extreme violence, which was without a doubt a product of the gruesome sights that he was confronted with since birth. Agreed. I wouldn't say necessarily without a doubt. I'd say usually these things, at least from doing a bunch of these shows, is it's often a combination of nature and nurture. Right. Of course there's nurture, like he saw all this violence and stuff, but I feel like someone who just. I mean, he's been abused as a kid, but not, I mean, it's hard to like classify like levels of abuse, but it's not as severe as it possibly could be. Right. Unless I miss something. He was, he wasn't hit by his dad. He was kind of just more of negligence and being exposed violence rather than being the victim of violence. So. And then also go into that scene and seeing that violence and not feeling anything at all. I feel like part of that's probably something that you're born with as well as something that's nurtured. Nurtured sounds way too positive. That's caused somehow. While the brain damage he suffered as a toddler probably also played a part in what Richard Ramirez would later become also. And of course that I suppose is part of nurture, but physical damage to his brain. All sources agree on the fact that not only the abuse he was exposed to since the very beginning of his life desensitized him to violence and killing, but also the cruelty of his cousin Miguel that he would so often enthuse about. His worldview as a teenager was as simple as it was dogmatic. It was the poor against the rich with him being some sort of messed up Robin Hood. Never talk about your dark and frankly sick ideas with anyone except maybe like minded individuals. And most importantly, brutality is completely justified if it's considered a duty by the culprit. That's pretty f ed up. Yeah, it's justified because I think it's my duty to kill. That's not a justification, mate. Murder, Torture, rape and the like also turn you into a God or at least make you equal to one. Richard hadn't quite decided about that yet. That is like, okay, that's messed up. When cousin Miguel got taken away from him and therefore also his only escape from his father's abuse, he decided to move in with his sister Ruth and her husband Roberto. If you hope this change of environment would be the turning point for the the still 13 year old Richard. I'm sorry to disappoint you. By the time he turned 14 in their household, he had already discovered LSD and was using it frequently. His sexual perversions were only furthered as well. His brother in law was an obsessive peeping Tom who proceeded to take the teenage Richard on late night walks to indulge in their shared voyeuristic interests. Unsurprisingly, he would soon begin to seek the superior feeling of bloodshed and sexual domination for himself. First Blood we're pretty much picking up where we left off. Richard Mirimieres is still a 14 year old 9th grader and he's about to get his first job. Shortly after receiving employment, the patrons of the El Paso Holiday Inn became his first victims. Not having forgotten what his now incarcerated cousin Miguel had told him about the rich and the poor, he proceeded to use his master key to enter hotel rooms and clear them of all valuables. He not only used his newfound occupation for both illegal and legal monetary gain, though, as he would soon molest two children in the hotel's elevator, he was never reported for this incident and therefore kept his employment for a while longer. Funnily enough, the first blood Richard would taste was his own. One night he attempted to rape a woman in her hotel room. Through sheer luck, her shocked and infuriated husband returned on time to save his wife and proceeded to beat the teenager senseless. I feel like infuriated. Maybe understating the anger there. The couple, who were not Texan citizens, declined to return and testify against him in court, resulting in the criminal charges being dropped. Nevertheless, he was of course fired immediately following this incident. He dropped out of Jefferson high school at 15. Wait, he was 14? Oh my God. I totally forgot he was so young. That's so insane to be doing crimes like that when you're 14. Good Lord. And continued to develop a keen interest in Satanism. Probably another act of rebellion against his Christian upbringing. His probably still glue sniffing brother Rupert had moved to Los Angeles and still committed petty crimes. He became another asset to his youngest brother by teaching him all he knew about burglaries and how to commit them. His knowledge was considered to be quite extensive. Soon, Richard made his way back to El Paso and put his newly acquired nature knowledge to good use. Thanks to the military grade stealth training that he had received years prior, he was never caught. When Richard Ramirez reached the age of 17 in 1977, a familiar face returned. Please don't Tell me. It's Mike. Mike. Why would they let you out? Why would they let you out? You're a horrible murderer. And when someone goes to an insane asylum or whatever they call it for that kind of thing, isn't it so they have to stay there forever? Oh God. It's gonna be you, isn't it? Miguel Ramirez was released from the mental hospital after just four years, and the two continued sharing drugs. He even accompanied Richard and Roberto on the nocturnal walks which were still taking place. Four years. I don't. They didn't obviously know about any of the stuff in Vietnam with the polaroids, because I don't think that came up. But he shot his wife in the face. Four years. What's up, Texas? Aren't you the state that's always like, give him the chair, get him in the chair. Come on, come on, come on. He shot his wife in the face. Maybe he shouldn't be executed, but he should be in prison for life. 25 years, whatever that is. A mere year later, just after turning 18 years old, Richard Ramirez moved to Los Angeles, California, resuming his criminal career after he was briefly arrested for stealing a vehicle. History does repeat itself. That kind of thrill was just not enough for him anymore. After a brief and relatively quiet stint in Los Angeles, Ramirez moved to San Francisco when he was 22. Two years later, on April 10, 1984, in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco, the nine year old Chinese American girl, Mei Long and her eight year old brother were on their way home. Suddenly, Mei noticed something missing from her pocket. The money, it's gone, she told her brother anxiously. The family were not very wealthy, so little May sent her younger brother home, saying she was going to catch him up once she found the $1 bill. While she was scanning the surrounding area, a man approached her. Can I help you? He asked her in a friendly manner. Yes, the little girl replied. I've lost a dollar somewhere around here. Have you seen it? Richard Ramirez did not hesitate. I have. He lies. Come with me. Oh my God. Talking to strangers, it's like, I feel like talking to strangers is such a strange thing because it's like, yo, kids don't talk to strangers. But then it's also like, what if it's a nice old woman in the park? And then you're just teaching your kids to just ignore her. And it's like, I go on walks with my kids and all the old people are always like, oh, look at this. And it's so nice. And it brings a giant smile to their face and to hate, to be the person who's gonna be like, at some point, you got to stop saying hi to those old ladies. Because at some point, one of them's not going to be an old lady. It's going to be a pedophile or a murderer. I don't know if that's statistically true, but it's like, it's what you got to do, right? Which is so sad. Mehling had evidently not been taught how dangerous it is to blindly trust people on the street, especially for young girls who get approached by much older men. I heard a. I'm sorry, this is just another tangent. I heard the right way to tell children what to do is not tell them to scream, but tell them. I mean, not tell them to just be like, ah, leave me alone, leave me alone. I don't, you know, leave me alone. Because that can be like, if. If we're leaving the play park, my kid will be doing this. She'll be like, leave me alone. I don't want to go home. You know, just generic. What you have to teach them to say, apparently this is Not Parenting YouTube podcast, but is, you're not my mum, you're not my dad. Like, that's what you apparently have to teach your children to scream. Because then people will be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Did I tell the story on this show? This is a tangent within a tangent. I know I'm out of control today, but a friend of mine, bizarrely enough, the strange dude. The strange dude, the same dude with the concussions, he was with his kid in a shopping center, a mall, as the Americans would call it, and he was like, all right, kids, we're going home. And the kid was having none of it, absolutely going mental and screaming and shouting. And he was like, he lives right next to them all. And he was carrying his kid home and takes them into their apartment. And he's like, oh, my God. Okay, wife, here's the kids. Please can you do something? It's just absolute. She's just going absolutely mental. The police show up to his apartment building and they're like, we just want to check that everything's alright. We had reports that there was a screaming child being carried by a man into this building. And I'm like, this was. My friend was like, this was intense. And at first I was like, what the hell is my daughter? And then he was like, thank you so much, because what if that wasn't, you know, what if it was the. What if this was something else that was going on and it's like, damn, I was pretty impressed by the police on that one. But it's a good story, right? And let's get back to the horror. Richard led the naive child into the basement of his apartment where he proceeded to beat and rape her. He hung her from a pipe by tying her blouse to it. Ramirez, now a full fledged Satanist, then ended her terrible suffering by stabbing her to death with a switchblade knife. She is later found. Is this his first murder? I think so. He raped, didn't end up in prison, which just remember to prosecute those people who went back who weren't Texas natives staying in the Holiday Inn. He'd have been in prison. He'd have been in prison. I mean, it's not your fault he's a murderer. It's all on him. But remember, crimes should be prosecuted, especially serious crimes. I'm not saying, like, if you have your handbag stolen in Texas and you live in California and the guy who stole your handbag is like going to get free if you don't go back and be a witness about the handbags. Okay, look, fine. I wouldn't bother. I don't think you have to bother. But if it's like a major violent crime, yeah, you kinda should, right? She's later found by the police after not returning home. Police investigate Police Inspector Ronald Schneider, one of the officers who first came upon the gruesome scene, later stated this. If you can picture Christ on the cross, that's the way she looked. Her head was drooped and her chin was down. It was a sad sight to see. She kinda got to me. Michael Mullane, another San Francisco inspector, is still of the opinion that May could have had at least a slim chance of survival. Her feet were only 2 inches from the ground. Had she been a little taller, she could have transferred her weight to her feet on the ground, therefore avoiding the suffocation for at least a while. And screamed and somebody could have come and helped her. This was one of the toughest ones. One, one of the ones you'd like to solve. I had little children at the time. The rape and murder of Mei Lung were only attributed to Richard Ramirez in 2009 by a DNA sample simple analysis. The case had been unsolved for the two decades prior. And according to police, there is the possibility of two culprits being responsible for the terrible act. This speculation is due to the fact that the DNA of more than one person had been recovered at the crime scene. The identity of the second suspect, however, was withheld by investigators because they had themselves been a minor at the time of the murder. Oh, okay. I was instantly jumping it to be Mike, cousin Mike or the other guy, the, the peeping Tom dude. But I guess not because they were both adults. Just before we continue with the episode today, big thank you to Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. And get this, 10% of the entirety of E commerce in the United States. Giant brands that you've heard of, Mattel for example. And if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for you, isn't it? And it's also, you might be thinking, well, I don't need something that big. I don't need something that complicated. While Shopify make it very, very easy to get started, they've got all sorts of incredible things that just make it easy. They've got this, these AI tools built in so you can automatically generate product descriptions. You can do page headlines. You could take a picture of a product that you want to sell, pop it into Shopify and it'll use AI to make it look professional and nice, which is really cool because I don't know about you, I think this is just something for everybody, right? Like if you see a good photo of a product, you're more likely to buy it. If the photo sucks, you're not going to buy it. Pretty simple, right? Shopify fixed that problem. Plus they're your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing infantry to international shipping and processing returns and beyond. Taking the headache out of that, which is very nice. Plus, Shopify is always around to share advice with their award winning 24. 7 customer support. So see, less carts abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com.com casual. Go to shopify.com casual. That's shopify.com casual. With big wireless providers, what you see is never what you get. Somewhere between the store and your first month bill, the price you thought you were paying magically skyrockets, doesn't it? Look, I don't know about you, but I don't like wasting my money on insane carrier plans, mobile plans, all that stuff. Look, this is just the right way to do things. It's a fantastic deal already. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plans starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with Mint Mobile's plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. So ditch Overflice Wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint mobile for just $15 a month. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com warfrans that's mintmobile.com warfrans upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5gb plan required equivalent to 15 dol months. New customer offer for first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mobile Buffer details.
- [34:38]
B
Eczema is unpredictable, but you can flare less with Epglis, a once monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema. After an initial four month or longer dosing phase, about four in 10 people taking EB gliss achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing.
- [34:57]
C
Emglis Lebricizumab LBKZ a 250mg 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to Ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when when treated with Eglis. Before starting Ebglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection.
- [35:31]
B
Ask your doctor about ebgliss and visit eglis.lilly.com or call 1-800-lilyrx or 1-800-545-5979. Score more with the college branded Venmo Debit card and earn up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash. Got paid back with the Venmo Debit card. You can instantly access your balance and spend on what you want like game day, snacks, gear, tickets and more. The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up now@venmo.com collegecard the Venmo Mastercard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Select Schools available Venmo Stash Terms and exclusions apply at Venmo me stash terms max 100 cash back per month.
- [36:08]
A
Disney plus wants to know are you ready for Marvel Studios Thunderbolts, the New Avengers, now streaming on Disney plus.
- [36:17]
B
Let's do this.
- [36:17]
A
One of the of the best Marvel movies of all time is now streaming on Disney plus.
- [36:22]
B
Hey, you weren't listening to me.
- [36:24]
A
I said Thunderbolts the New Avengers is now streaming on Disney plus. Meet the new Avengers. That's cool, man. Marvel Studios Thunderbolts, the New Avengers. Rated PG 13. Now streaming on. You guessed it, Disney Plus. It did not take long for Richard Ramirez to strike again after he left San Francisco and returned to Los Angeles on June 28th. On the 12th, 1984, Ramirez was out of money again. His cocaine addiction left his purse empty once more. So he decided to put the burglary skills his cousin Miguel taught him to good use. He broke into the apartment of 79 year old Jenny Vinkow, located in Glassour Park, Northeast Los Angeles. The elderly woman was sleeping in her bed as he began to ransack her home trying to locate her valuables. Frustrated by the apparent lack thereof, he sliced the still asleep Jenny Vinkow's throat. Even though she's dead, he stabs her neck until she's almost decapitated. Remember I mentioned that Ramirez got sexually aroused by the extreme violence. I know where your thoughts are going on this one. Oh God. I. I don't want to speculate into such grim areas as this, but Richard Ramirez, she's seven. How old was the girl? She is a child and this is an old woman. What is wrong with you? I know where your thoughts are going. And yes, he proceeded to rape. Oh my God. Afterwards, he proceeded to rape the nine year old's dead body. Not long afterwards, the victim's son, Jack Vinker, went to visit his mother. Surprised by the fact that her apartment door was unlocked, he stepped inside. I looked around the living room and I saw everything thrown on the floor. He later testified in court when he found his dead and mutilated mother, he yelled out for the manager of the apartment block and told him to call the police. When I saw she was dead, I shouted out to the manager, my mother's been murdered. I said for it several times. My mother's been murdered. Call the police. Ramirez's fingerprints were later discovered on a mesh screen near his window of entry, but did not produce any matches in the police database. Wasn't he arrested for that rape at the Holiday Inn? But then he was a minor, so maybe they were not on record for him as an adult. Or maybe they didn't take the fingerprints. Or maybe they didn't have a cross state or federal database at that time to compare fingerprints from different states. Because that was in Texas and this is in California. Who knows? But either way, that's a shame. A horrifying spree. Richard Ramirez laid low for almost nine months after the vicious attack on Jenny Vinkow. He was briefly imprisoned during the latter part of 1984 for stealing a vehicle, having his mugshot and fingerprints taken. Currently staying in Rosemead, Los Angeles county found another target. It's the home of 22 year old Maria Hernandez and her 12 year old housemate Dale Yoshi Okazaki. On March 17, 1985, as Ramirez was sneaking around the property, Maria Hernandez pulled her car into the garage and noticed a bulgy eyed, defeated looking man with curly hair and rotting teeth inspecting her house's windows. To her horror, he had a gun in his hand. Wait, hold on. Did we just say that his fingerprints were taken in 1984 for stealing a vehicle? I guess. And they didn't match them to the screen prints on the earlier crime. I guess this, I mean this is back in the day, 1980s. I guess today you just have those plugged into a system and a computer would be like, found him. But back in the day, I guess they didn't have that kind of computing power or something because surely, surely. Come on. Sorry. Anyway, Richard Ramirez did not hesitate and immediately fired. The woman, Maria, held up her hands in order to protect her head from the scary man bullet. But luckily it ricocheted off the car keys that she still clutched tight. Oh my God. Are you lucky. I mean, not lucky you got shot at by a psycho, but I mean, wow. Still, she acted like she was hit and started to play dead. Maria Hernandez must have been a great actress. Ramir fell for the simple trick. Like a coyote in the wilderness being deceived by an opossum detective. Determined to stay alive, he finally attempted to commit the crime he came for, even though I doubt he did not see the murder as a pleasant side effect. And he broke into the house. Maria's housemate Dale had heard the gunshot outside and hid behind the kitchen counter. She wanted to catch a good look at the intruder to help the investigation. But as she raised her head, Ramirez shot her in the head with his.22 caliber handgun. She died instantly. Ramirez stripped the house of all its valuables and left, not returning to check on Maria. He only left a size 12 AVIA shoe print and a cap of the rock band acdc. How dare you dishonor them like that? At the scene during the same hour of the Rosemead home invasion, the Taiwanese immigrant Tsai Lian Yu, who went by Veronica as it was easier to pronounce, drove her car around Monterey Park. Suddenly, she saw a strange looking man approach her vehicle. Initially she guessed he's a homeless guy on the hunt for a little cash. When she spotted his gun, it was already too late.
- [41:13]
B
Late.
- [41:13]
A
Richard Ramirez pulled Veronica out of the car, shot her twice and stole the car. She died from blood loss within minutes. Of course, two murders and an attempted third one in such close proximity to one another and in such a short frame of time alerted the local media. By then, Maria Hernandez had given an extensive description of her friend's murderer to the local police. And the Walk In Killer, also dubbed the Valley Intruder, was born. Reading his description on virtually every newspaper's front page made Richard Ramirez lie low for a comparatively long time. Ten days later, on 27 March 1985, at 2am, Vincent Charles Zazara and his wife, Maxine Lavenia Zazara were fast asleep in the home on the outskirts of Whittier, California. Comparatively long time. 10 days. He murdered two people and he thought he murdered a third. He's all over the press and he's like, well, I gave it 10 days, didn't I? That should be enough. It will blow over. I hope it doesn't. I mean, it definitely doesn't because we know how this ends. We know who he is and he gets caught, right? I think. Pretty sure. Ten days. Okay. Ramirez swiftly entered and immediately shot Vincent in the head with the same.22 caliber handgun from earlier. The 64 year old was killed instantly. Startled by the sound, his two years younger wife woke up and stared the attacker right in the face. As Ramirez started beating and trying out tying her hands together, she soon recognized him as the wanted man from the newspaper. Where are your valuables? He demanded any cash, gold, jewelry? Understandably scared, Maxine told Ramirez the locations of anything he might consider worth taking with him. Wait, she's 44. But he was 64. Is it 12 years younger or two years younger? 22 years younger? Just a little fact check on the maths. There must have been just a typo of 2 to 22. Understandably scared, Maxine told Ramirez the location of anything he might consider worth taking with him. But the 44 year old one was not done fighting. 44? He was 64. Ah, it should be 20 years younger. It says two, but it's 20 years younger. Ah, must just be a typo. Wanting to avenge her dead husband, she freed herself from her bonds while Ramirez was busy ransacking the room. She dove underneath the bed where the couple kept a handgun of their own. To her horror, she discovered it was not loaded. I know you shouldn't keep a loaded gun, but in the situation where you need a gun, right? I mean, that's when it. Oh my. Of course, the assailant noticed her action, so he shot her three times and went to the couple's kitchen scanning it for a knife. He found a large carving knife and was evidently satisfied with it as he took it back to the murder scene. You probably know what comes next. Richard Ramirez mutilated Maxine's body by stabbing her in multiple places several times. But this time he went even further. He removed Maxine's eyes and placed them in an empty jewellery box, which he took home as a souvenir. In a front for garden flowerbed, he left behind another footprint. Vincent and Maxine's izzaro are found by their son Peter some 12 hours later. The footprint in the flowerbed became the police's first real evidence, as this one, in contrast with the one Ramirez left in Rosemead, could be cast. They also extracted five bullets from Vincent and Maxine's bodies and compared the ballistic markings, which are basically the unique fingerprints of a gun, to the markings of the other bullets they found at the crime scenes with similar or identical aviation footprints. Since Ramirez had always used the same gun in every crime, the LAPD immediately came to the conclusion that a serial killer was at large. Pretty great police work for casual criminal standards, I must say. Yeah, I mean, also basic. This time, Richard Ramirez let just over six weeks pass before choosing his next victims. On May 14, 1985, Ramirez returned to Monterey park, where he had already murdered Veronica Yu, and broke into the home of Bill Doy and his disabled wife Lillian. He surprised Bill in his bedroom and fired the gun at him. A single shot connected. The 66 year old, however, survived the bullet to his face and attempted to retrieve his own pistol. Determined to fight back, of course, his unwounded assailant easily overpowered Bill and beat him unconscious. Thinking he had killed him, Richard Ramirez then turned his attention to Lillian Doy, who was sleeping in another bedroom. He did not shoot her immediately, but instead bound her with thumb cuffs and made her watch as he stripped her home of all its valuables. When he was done, he raped her. Bill Doye was later taken to the hospital, but sadly, Passed away from his injuries. His wife Lillian survived. Although severely traumatized during the following 15 days, Ramirez stole another car and drove it to Monrovia. On May 29, 1985, the same day, he entered the house of Mabel Ma Bell and sister Florence Nettie Lang. The two women were 83 and 81 years old. He found the two of them and bludgeoned them with a hammer, one after the other. Mabel was shocked with an electrical cord and probably aroused from the torture he inflicted on the elderly woman. He raped Nettie right next to her. Then he took one of Mabel's lipsticks and drew a satanic pentagram on her thigh. He took whatever he could find to fund his still ongoing drug addiction and left the house. This guy's like an agent of the fuck devil. Like I don't believe in any of that stuff, but this guy is like as close to a demon as is possible. He's just like motivated by evil. Two days later, the two women were found comatose and critically injured. They were rushed to a hospital immediately, where Mabel passed away while Nettie survived. The next day, Richard Ramirez drove the same stolen car to Burbank. His next victim ended up being Carol Kyle, a 42 year old single mother of an 11 year old son. After entering her house, he bound the surprised Carol and her son by the hands and proceeded to ransack their home. After a while, he released Carol so that she could show him where the rest of their valuables were and raped her multiple times. Her shocked son could hear his mother's screams the entire time. He also heard Ramirez order Carol not to look at him repeatedly. Turn your eyes away or I will cut them out. He threatened. Eventually. Eventually, he finally left the house and disappeared off the radar until the 2nd of July. That night, Ramirez chose the Arcadia. The arcadia House of 75 year old Mary Louise Cannon, whom he bludgeoned with a lamp while she slept. Mary lived alone since her husband had already passed away, so there was nobody who could hear the commotion. She had already gone unconscious from the beating when Ramirez stabbed her with a 10 inch long butcher knife he found in her kitchen. He continued even after she had passed away and and she was found in a burglarized home not long after, leaving behind several children and grandchildren. On July 5, Richard Ramirez broke into a Sierra Madre home where he encountered the 16 year old Whitney Bennett sleeping in her bedroom. He had brought a tire iron with him in order to incapacitate the house's inhabitants, so he promptly used it to bludgeon Whitney. The people this was all happening in one part of California. At this point, I'd be like, I don't own a gun. But at this point I'll be like, I'm going to go buy a gun and get an alarm system for my house with those window break sensors. I don't know if those existed in the 80s, but whatever technology exists, I'm buying and I'm getting a gun and I'm keeping it loaded under my pillow like some James Bond shit. Because I know statistically, even though all of this is going on, it's still unlikely, but I'm like, oh boy, oh boy, I'm taking this mofo out. If he breaks in, it's happening, it's happening. When she stopped breathing, Ramirez searched for a knife that he could use to mutilate her body, as he'd done so many times before. However, he did not manage to find one. So he chose a nearby telephone cord instead. While he was strangling the unconscious woman with it, the cord suddenly began to emit electrical sparks and Ramirez victim began to breathe again. He immediately fled the house without taking any items whatsoever. Jesus Christ came and saved the girl, he would later state. Whether through divine intervention or not. Whitney survived the attack. And though 478 stitches when necessary to close the huge lacerations that Ramirez had left behind on her scalp. Good Lord. I've had stitches a few times. A few times. Twice. Three times. And I had like, I don't know, maybe 1520 in my shoulder. And that is a F scar. 478. My God. Two days later, the Monterey park resident, Joyce Lucille Nelson was asleep on her living room couch. The 60 year old will never wake up again. The reason for this sad circumstance is of course, Richard Ramirez, who was already prowling through her home during her slumber after stealing cash and a few pieces of jewelry, ended Joyce's life by repeatedly stomping on her face. He once again left behind his footprint. After driving his stolen car through two other Los Angeles neighborhoods, he returned to Monterey Park. Sophie Dickman ended up becoming his next victim. At some point you gotta be like, police, where are you in this story? Because that is a lot of people getting murdered in one city. And I know it's a big city. I have no idea what the geography of this is like. Where's Monterey park related to all the other stuff we were talking about. But Los Angeles is a big place. But still, where is the police in this story so far? They cast a boot print. Aren't they warning people about this? What's going on once Ramirez had successfully entered a home, he surprised and assaulted the 63 year old woman. After he handcuffed her, he attempted to rape her. He proceeded to rob the shocked lady's jewellery and and to make sure she was not hiding anything from him, he told her to swear on Satan. On July 2, Ramirez brought a large machete before arriving in Glendale, California. Lila, Max and Kneadling were next. He did not even make use of the element of surprise which had been so crucial for him in prior crimes. Ramirez just barged into the elderly couple's bedroom and attacked them with his machete. That sounds like a bit of a surprise, but they were not dying fast enough for him so he shot them and mutilated their dead bodies before ransacking the their home. He quickly fenced the stolen goods and made his way to Sun Valley. The following night at approximately 4:15am, Richard Ramirez paid a visit to the Kovanath family house. The father chain, Narong Kovanath was killed instantly by a shot to the head. His wife Sam Kidd, however, was beaten and raped multiple times before he dragged her around the house making her point out valuable items. Her 8 year old son which witnessed all of it while tied up. Some kid had to swear on Satan as well. August 6th was the day of Richard Ramirez's next attack. At night he struck into the house of Chris and Virginia Peterson in Northridge, Los angeles area. The 27 year old Virginia was woken up by the noises he made. So he went into the bedroom and shot her right in the face. Her husband took a bullet in the neck but managed to fight back against the assailant. He dodged two more bullets which evidently scared regularly Ramirez and made him flee their residence. Luckily, Chris and Veronica both survived their injuries. Whoa. She was shot in the face and survived. I mean, I'm glad no one's glad that this ever happens to anyone, but that is good. I'm glad they survived. Two days later, just after 2:30am, Richard Ramirez broke into the home inhabited by Elias and Sakina Abawath as well as their son. As usual, the husband was killed on the spot by a shot to the head. Sakina was handcuffed and subjected to beatings as well as sexual abuse. Her three year old son was tied up and forced to watch his mother swear on Satan that she would not scream during the assault. When Ramirez was done, he left the house and shortly after Sakina sent her son to the neighbors in order to get help. Richard Ramirez had followed the news attentively for the last weeks. And ultimately decided to leave Los Angeles. I have to say, I mean, it's kind of a. His like not getting caught is just insane. He's just committing these brazen crimes and just staying in the same place super regularly. It just seems like he must be thinking, how have I not been caught? This is crazy. On August 18, 1985, he arrived in San Francisco and entered the house of Barbara and Peter Pan. Of course, Peter was killed instantly by a shot at the temple. He died at the age of 66. Barbara was sexually assaulted, shot as well, and left for dead. Before Ramirez exited the home, he drew a pentagram and the phrase Jack the Knife. Sounds like the title of a cheap horror movie to me. On the bedroom wall using one of Barbara's lipsticks. Yeah, I mean, other than all the brutal murder he's committing, like his, the satanic drawings, the kind of appearing like a crazy dude, all of this stuff is like. The killer did not notice that he left another footprint behind. Lead detectives Frank Solano and Gil Carillo finally contacted the manufacturer of Ramirez's shoes. Navia confirmed that only 6 of the specific model were shipped in size 11.55 of them had been shipped to several locations in Arizona, while a single pair went to Los Angeles to a shoe store. Of course, that made it evident that that pair belonged to Ramirez in every crime scene. With that spirit, specific footprints was his doing. The police also analyzed all the bullets that were recovered and came to the conclusion that the Pan murders had also been committed by Richard Ramirez, therefore showing that he did not restrict himself to the Los Angeles area. Following these findings, San Francisco's then mayor, Dianne Feinstein divulged the information in a full on televised press conference. The police were understandably infuriated by the careless leak and their anger was justified. Richard Ramirez threw it his size 11 and a half obvious C sneakers over the side of the Golden Gate Bridge that same evening and left the city again. Why? What are you up to, Mayor? Why would you release this information? This is super important information not to release. You should be. Is there a cri. I don't think there's a crime there, like obstructing an investigation or something. But she's not doing it intentionally. I'm assuming she's just an idiot, but wow, how stupid are you? That's crazy. Ramirez traveled around 76 miles south of Los Angeles to visit Mission Viej Viejo, Vallejo, where he planned to burglarize the home of James Romero Jr. Who had just returned from a family vacation to Mexico. His son, 13 year old James Romero III happened to be awake and heard Ramirez's footsteps outside the house. Thinking there was a prowler, James went to wake his parents and the more careful Ramirez fled the scene. James ran. Outsider noted the color maker's style of the car. He even managed to catch a glimpse of the license plate number. Yeah, but it's definitely going to be stolen. That's part of his thing, isn't it? He just steals cars to get around again. Just brazen crime committing with seemingly very little thought to being like this could get me caught. Okay. The boy's father contacted the police with this information, believing James had chased away a thief. At that point in time, he was not aware that his son had managed to scare off the state's most wanted man, who would probably have murdered the them Both if the 13 year old had not been awake. Not satisfied and still with the need for cash and probably violence, Ramirez broke into the house of Bill Kahns, aged 30, and his slightly younger fiance, Inez Eriksson. Utilizing their house's back door, Ramirez entered the sleeping couple's bedroom and awakened Bill. When he cocked his new.25 caliber handgun, he shot cards three times in the head like he did the other men. Before turning his attention to Inez, Ramirez told her that he was the Night Stalker and forced her to profess her love for Satan as he beat her with his fists and bound her neck with neckties from the closet. After stealing every item he could find, Ramirez dragged Inez to another room before raping her, he then demanded cash and more jewelry and made her swear on Satan there was no more. Before leaving the home, Ramirez told her tell them the Night Stalker was here. Inez untied herself and went to her neighbor's house to get help for her gravely injured fiance. Luckily, the surgeons were capable of removing two of the three bullets from his head and he survived his injuries. Legend, you got shot three times in the head and survivors. I'm just always like, if you get shot in the head like it's in movies, it's game over. Damn, man, that is something. Arrest and trial. Inez Eriksson gave a very detailed description of the assailant to police and they immediately knew who had attacked her and her fiance. Another car that Ramirez had stolen was found abandoned on the 28th in Careertown, Los Angeles, and the police obtained a single fingerprint from one of the rearview mirrors. Ramirez had tried to clean the car of all prints, but missed that one. The fingerprint was positively identified as belonging to Ramirez, who was described as A drifter in his mid-20s from Texas with a long rap sheet that included tons of arrests for traffic and illegal drug violations. The following day, law enforcement officials decided to release a mugshot of Ramirez from the arrest for his 1984 auto theft to the media. And the Night Stalker finally had a face that the public could recognize. At the latest press conference, the following was announced. We know who you are now, and soon everyone else will. There will be no place to hide. So really, just going to San Francisco. I can't believe it took this long for this to be done. I mean, I feel like he was leaving evidence all over the place. And eventually they just found that one fingerprint, and that got him busted along with a sketch. It's like no one did a sketch before. It just seems like there should have been more effort here. The police's first opportunity of catching Richard Ramirez went painfully wrong, though, despite the rather massive breakthrough in the investigation. In the early morning of Aug. 31, Ramirez returned to Los Angeles from Tucson, Arizona, where he had been visiting one of his brothers. He arrived by bus while police officers were monitoring the terminal to prevent any escape by an outbound bus. Now it's time for Simon to have a longer way to go at the police, because guess what? I don't know. I mean, what I do know is that this is not my first time having to go at the police. It seems like there should have been more done about this dude who's been murdering people on a spree in your city. I don't know if we just glossed over that. If the police were like, stay inside, get a gun, lock your doors, lock your windows. If you have the ability to provide additional security devices, then by all means do so. But I don't know, it just seems like there was not police action or not inaction when there should have been, like, just come on a bit more done. No. Richard Ray has just stepped off the bus, walked directly past the policeman into a nearby convenience store. Oh. Cause they were. The police are there looking at people who were getting onto buses to leave town. And Richard Ramirez is just casually cruising back into town, I imagine, unaware that now everyone knows what he looks like. In said store, a small group of elderly Hispanic women began to whisper avidly as he came near them. Being bilingual, due to his Mexican parents, he was able to pick up the words el matador, which literally mean the killer in Spanish. A second later, he noticed his own face on the front page of La Opinion, a Hispanic newspaper. It was accompanied by a headline calling him invasio nocturno, or night Invader. Scared that people who were capable of detaining him might pick up on his similarity to the Night Invader. Similarity, Sameness. They are the same person. He left the store in a panic. Sure, that's a great way not to draw attention to yourself. Although, to be honest, if the people appointing you, you'd say the killer. The killer. Maybe it is time to flee. He sprinted across the Santa ana Freeway, Interstate 5, and attempted to carjack an unlocked Ford Mustang to make a quick getaway. An angry resident named Faustino Binion was able to stop him, though. But Ramirez was still unwilling to give up. He ran further down the street and tried to violently take the keys of a woman named Angelina Della Torres. Her husband Manuel, bore witness to the event and immediately struck his wife's attacker over the head with a fence post. In the ensuing pursuit, a group of 10 residents who either witnessed the attempts of car theft or recognized the man from the newspaper formed and chased Ramirez down Hubbard street in Boyle Heights. The group of citizens forced and held Ramirez down and relentlessly beat him. Mob justice feels good. Around 8pm Police were called over to a commotion in the area. With few details but with indications of a fight, police quickly arrived at the 3700th block of Hubbard and found that Ramirez was severely beaten and armed, taking him into custody. Wait, what time did he get into town? They waited till 8pm I don't know. For some reason in my mind, this was happening in the afternoon. Like he's cruising into town in the afternoon and they're just beating him for hours, and then they finally call the police. The crowd grew to several hundred people and was becoming unruly towards Ramirez. And responded several hundred people and responding officer Andy Ramirez, not related to the culprit, stayed behind while Officer Jim Kaiser drove Ramirez to the Hollenbeck police station. His arrest must have been quite a relief for Richard Ramirez, as everyone knew about the extent of his brutal crimes and he barely made it out of mob justice alive. This is especially true for rapists and the dickheads who murder elderly people. Nearly three years later, on July 22, the jury for the high profile trial started to be selected. Richard Ramirez's actual trial began half a year later, in early 1989. During his first court appearance, the first thing Ramirez did was hold up a pentagram that he had drawn on his hand and yell, hail Satan. Okay, well, we know he's a Satanist, right? Is he gonna play for some sort of insanity thing? I mean, he does seem pretty insane. But he also needs to go to prison forever. His trial was not a short one, even though the evidence was beyond damning. On 14 August, the trial had to be put on hold because one of the jurors, Phyllis Singletary, had not shown up for court and was later found dead in her apartment. She had been shot. It's just a coincidence he's in prison, he's definitely not on bail or any of that shit, and he definitely doesn't know where the jury lives. Of course, Richard Ramirez was immediately suspected as he had made similar threats of gun violence to the prosecutor beforehand. The rest of the jury were of course terrified that he could somehow reach them as well. But luckily it soon became clear that the culprit was Phyllis Singletree's then boyfriend, who had committed a murder suicide. Yeah, Ramirez isn't gonna be able to. He's just a single lone wolf psycho killer. He doesn't have some. It's not like he's part of the mafia and he's got someone on the outside who's gonna pop off the jury. Although if I was on that jury, I'd be like, I'm gonna need some police officers in my house forever, please, until he's in prison and you find out whoever's doing his dirty work. Otherwise, I want out. I'm done. I'm done. Or I'm saying he's innocent. He had been found dead in a hotel room not long after his girlfriend, killed with the same gun that took Phyllis life too. Still, the alternate juror who was set to replace her was too scared to return to her own home when she saw Ramirez for the first time on 20 September 1989, Ramirez was naturally convicted of all charges brought against him. 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 4, 14 burglaries. Please note that this does not include the rape and murder of Mei Long as this crime could only be attributed to him 20 years later. Yeah, now he's got enough though. California, they're not going to kill him though, are they? And we had this. I was thinking about this the other day in another episode, like, do they have federal death penalty? Is that a thing or is it just up to the states? Because I get the feeling Richard Ramirez doesn't get the death penalty, but I might just be misremembering that. And I think that's probably in line with California not having a death penalty at the time because Manson was let off. We recently were talking about Manson and I feel like he should have got the federal he did get the death penalty, but at the state level. But then they cancelled it in California or there was some sort of, like, kibosh on it or whatever. Couldn't they have just given him federal. Come on, come on. It's Manson. It's Charles Manson. During the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, 1989, he received 19 death penalties. Okay, never mind. I was wrong. And was subsequently sentenced to die in California's gas chamber. Allegedly, Richard Ramirez stated this to the flock of reporters after the death sentences. Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland. Despite his rather apathetic demeanor, he launched several appeals to his sentence. On August 7, 2006, Ramirez's first round of state appeals ended unsuccessfully when the California Supreme Court upheld his convictions, and therefore almost also his death sentence. On September 7, 2006, the California Supreme Court denied his request for a rehearing of the initial appeal. Ramirez died on June 7, 2013, from complications associated with blood cancer, hepatitis C, and, of course, substance abuse. He'd been on death row for over 23 years and had several appeals pending at the time of his death. It's crazy. 23 years on death row. I'm not saying this is something that should happen speedily, and obviously there should be, like, a long, drawn out Appeals process, but 23 years? Wow. Experts estimate that the death penalty would have been carried out during his 70s due to California's lengthy and complicated appeals process. Finally, the horrible crime spree of Richard Ramirez had come to an end. And we can all hope that he's rotting in hell with his good buddy and role model, Satan. He's probably got to hell and he's like, oh, this isn't what it's cracked up to be. I thought it would be great. It turns out getting tortured is rubbish. From the time of his birth onward, he began checking all the boxes for a future serial killer. An abusive parental figure, head injuries, early exposure to the worst kinds of violence, animal cruelty, and drug abuse. The psychiatrist Michael H. Stone describes him as a made psychopath, as opposed to a born psychopath. Ah, there's one of those discussions. Like, we were having this earlier in the episode, weren't we? He also states that his schizoid personality disorder rendered him indifferent to the terrible suffering he inflicted on his victims. Ramirez's hypersexuality, which no doubt attributed to many of the cases of rape, was the side effect of many head injuries he endured as a child. Does this make him any less despicable? According to several studies, the death of A person leaves at least six close friends or family members absorbed in grief and mentally affected. If we use this data on Richard Ramirez victims, we have 13 deaths. So 78 grieving loved ones, surviving wives, roommates, children, and an additional 11 rapes and five cases of violent assault. That's a total of 107 lives ruined by a single person in a single year. That's almost one life per three days. Yeah, his violent tendencies were a product of accidents and an environment he was not at fault for. But Even during the 70s and 80s, help would have been available. When his cousin Miguel was sent to a mental institution, the teenage Richard was already aware of his strong arousal from violence. I know it's easy to say, but help is always available. Yeah, but someone like Richard Ramirez is not going to seek out help because he doesn't see himself as broken in a way. Like early on we saw like how Miguel was teaching him. He felt righteous in a way which is crazy obviously, but that sort of person is not going to seek out voluntarily, I don't think. Right. If you recognize any of the symptoms that have been described in this episode of Casual Criminalist, you or a loved one, please contact a psychologist or call a crisis hotline. If you're not comfortable with speaking on the phone. There are many international services available that offer texting based advice and you can find many of them listed here. I'm just going to read a URL quickly. It's a bit. It's okay. Siteguides.com Guidemental Health Hotline so yeah, I guess because depending on where you're listening to this show will depend on where you go. If you believe you or someone close to you is in danger or planning to hurt others, contact your emergency services. Locally dismembered appendices 1. If you're wondering what his non abusive mother Mercedes did during his troublesome teenage years, she simply didn't care about what her weirdo ever son was up to. It's reported that when 11 year old Richard smashed a neighbor's window in, all she did was shrug when she was told. 2. Speaking of Ramirez's mother, while childbirth went well, the pregnancy did not. Allegedly her body tried to reject the fetus multiple times which would have caused a miscarriage. Make of that whatever you will. 3. While Richard Ramirez did not have any children of his own, he sure had a lot of romance going on in his life. No, not during his days of freedom as he was too busy snorting that sweet Colombian nose candy and ripping apart other families. But during his time on death Row. This is so weird. This is always so dark. The people who like marry death row inmates and stuff and like begin relationships with them, it's just weird. Why is that allowed? Admittedly did not look too bad for someone with a crippling drug addiction since the age of 10. So he had many fans and admirers who frequently wrote to him and visited him in prison. Really? I've seen pictures of Richard Ramirez. He's a scary looking dude with weird teeth. Right? Right. Starting in 1985, a woman named Doreen Lioy wrote him nearly 75 letters. During his incarceration in 1988, Ramirez proposed to Leo, and on October 3, 1996, they were married in California's San Quentin State Prison. For many years before Ramirez's death, Lioy frequently stated that she would commit suicide when Ramirez was due to be executed. However, Lioy eventually left Ramirez in 2009 after DNA evidence confirmed that he had raped and murdered nine year old Mei Leung. Well, that's what pushed you over the edge. All the previous murders were. Well, after all the murders and rapes that had already been proven, this one apparently seemed a bit too much to her. By the time of his death in 2013, Ramirez was engaged to Christine Lee, a 23 year old writer. There's even a name for that type of behavior, a mental condition by the name of high hybristophilia, which causes those affected by it to be inexplicably attracted to criminals. Apparently the more heinous the crime, the better. Yeah, I mean, there must be some strange psychological reason for this, because it's not rational, is it? This has been an episode of the Casual Criminalist. Thank you to Jen for writing it. Thank you to Jen for editing this and different people. And thank you for watching or listening however you consume this show. If you're watching on YouTube, like subscribe, that'd be grand. If you're listening as a podcast, a review is always most welcome. Thank you for watching or listening. With big wireless providers, what you see is never what you get. Somewhere between the store and your first month's bill, the price you thought you were paying magically skyrockets, doesn't it? Look, I don't know about you, but I don't like wasting my money on insane carrier plans, mobile plans, all that stuff. Look, this is just the right way to do things. It's a fantastic deal already. Mint Mobile is here to rescue you with premium wireless plan. Start starting at 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with Mint Mobile's plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts. So ditch Overflice Wireless and get three months of premium wireless service from Mint mobile for just $15 a month. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans@mintmobile.com warfrance that's mintmobile.com warfrance upfront payment of $45 for 3 month 5gb plan required equivalent to $15 a month new customer offer for first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra. See Mobile for details. This episode is brought to you by
- [71:15]
B
Nespresso Introducing Vertuo up, the latest in a long line of innovation from nespresso. It's innovation you can touch, sense and taste in every single cup. With a three second start, easy open lever and dedicated brew over ice button, it's even easier to enjoy your coffee your way.
- [71:35]
A
Sip for yourself.
- [71:36]
B
Shop Virtuo up exclusively at nespresso. Com.