The Night Stalker
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The night stalker performed his evil ritual. The couple lay dead, with the wife missing her two eyes. Her beautiful eyes carved out with a bloody knife and tossed in a jewelry box. Was this the work of a man, or the devil himself? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 64. The story of Richard Ramirez, the night stalker. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

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Another great way you can help support Forensic Tales is by leaving us a positive rating with a review or telling friends and family who love true crime about us. Now, let's jump right into this week's case. This week's case covers one of the most prolific serial killers we've ever experienced. A serial killer who terrorized the entire state of California. One who reminded us to lock our doors at night.

The Night Stalker terrorized the sunny state during the spring and summer of 1985. But what could drive an innocent child to become the Night Stalker? Before he was the Night Stalker, he was Richard Leyva Munoz Ramirez, born on February 29, 1960 in El Paso, Texas. Born as the fifth child to Mexican immigrants, he often went by the name Ricky. His childhood was stricken with poverty.

His dad worked on a railroad line and his mom at a boot factory. As a kid, Richard developed epilepsy, a nerve cell disorder in the brain that causes seizures. It's unclear what exactly caused Richard to develop epilepsy. Epilepsy is a brain condition that can result from either genetics or brain injuries like trauma or a stroke.

As a young five-year-old, Richard experienced many traumatic head injuries, including being knocked unconscious with a baseball bat. Richard grew up terrified of his father. Sometimes, during his father's violent episodes, Richard ran away from home and even slept in the cemetery just to get away from the violence. One of Richard's first and closest friends growing up was his older cousin, Miguel.

Richard looked up to Miguel. He idolized him. As a kid, Richard and Miguel bonded over many activities. Smoking marijuana became their norm. But they also shared a peculiar interest in death, sex, and torture. When Richard was a kid, Miguel returned home from fighting in the Vietnam War. Miguel told Richard stories about torturing Vietnamese women.

There were no talks of sports and video games. Miguel filled Ricky's head with mutilation, torture, and death. At only 13 years old, Ricky witnessed his first murder. The young teen witnessed his cousin Miguel shoot his wife Jessie in the face. This incident would mark Richard's introduction to murder. Later that year, Richard moved in with his older sister Ruth and her husband Roberto.

Similar to his older cousin, Roberto was another dark influence. Roberto was known as the town's Peeping Tom, who frequently took Richard along. Young Richard's unconventional education continued. First murder, now sex, what's next? In 1977, shortly after starting the ninth grade, Richard dropped out of Jefferson High School.

It was also the year of his first arrest. Not surprisingly, Richard was arrested for marijuana possession. His older cousin Miguel would be proud. After his first arrest, 22-year-old Richard moved out of Texas and headed west to Southern California. As a teenager, Los Angeles quickly became his home away from home, the perfect breeding ground to advance his criminal endeavors.

In Los Angeles, Richard graduated from marijuana to cocaine. He also advanced to more serious crimes, adding burglary to his arsenal. He also became a fan of stealing cars. He was arrested twice for auto theft, once in 1981 and a second time in 1984. Richard Ramirez also became a detained student at the Los Angeles County Jail System.

In 1984, while living in Los Angeles, Richard's crimes took a dramatic turn. He was no longer interested in stealing cars and home burglaries. He craved more. On June 28th, Richard broke into the home of 79-year-old Jenny Vinko. The 79-year-old was sexually assaulted, stabbed, and killed inside of her apartment in Glassell Park, Los Angeles.

The stab wounds to her neck were so deep that it nearly decapitated her. When investigators arrived at Jenny Vinko's apartment, they were shocked by the brutality of her murder. From an investigative standpoint, nothing made sense. Jenny had no enemies. Her killer attacked her while she was sleeping. And there was the most obvious question.

Who would sexually assault, stab, and murder a 79-year-old woman inside of her own home? Following Jenny Vinko's murder, the case turned cold. All investigators could recover was an unknown fingerprint on a mesh screen likely the entry point. And without any eyewitnesses, it seemed as though Jenny's case would remain unsolved.

After Jenny Vinko's murder in June 1984, Richard seemed to lay low, possibly deciding whether he wanted to continue to kill or not, a decision that would change the course of not only his life, but the lives of everyone who lived in Los Angeles. Nine months later, Richard made up his mind. In March 1985, Richard meticulously chose his next victim,

He broke into 22-year-old Maria Hernandez's house in Rosemead. He waited in her garage like a hungry tiger ready to pounce. Once Maria parked her car, Richard shot at her face with a .22 caliber handgun. Maria's hands reached up to shield her face. She clenched her keys in her hand.

The bullet miraculously ricocheted off the car keys, missing her face by just a few millimeters. After being shot at, she ran down the street away from the home. After hearing the gunshot, Maria's roommate, 34-year-old Dale Okasaki, ducked behind the kitchen counter. She saw Richard run into the house. It was now a cat-and-mouse game.

As soon as Dale lifted her head from the counter, Richard shot her. Game over. After Maria Hernandez miraculously dodged a bullet, she called 911. She told police the killer was a man with curly hair, bulging eyes, and rotting teeth. She said it was like staring into the eyes of the devil. But Richard wasn't satisfied.

The same night he attempted to murder Maria Hernandez and successfully killed her roommate, he continued killing. Within an hour of the murder in Rosemead, Richard approached 32-year-old Sai Leanne Yu in Monterey Park. Richard demanded she gets out of the car, then he shot her twice. She was dead within minutes.

Two murders and one attempted murder all on the same night sparked a media frenzy across Los Angeles. People started to become afraid of the Valley Intruder, a name given to Richard in the media. Nobody knew where the Valley Intruder was headed next, and everyone feared they would become his next victim. Ten days later, the Valley Intruder struck again. But these murders were a little bit different.

On March 27th, Richard broke into 64-year-old Charles Zazara and his wife, 44-year-old Maxine Zazara's home in Whittier. Around 2 o'clock a.m., Richard entered the house and found the couple sleeping in their bed. Lifting his .22 caliber gun, he shot Charles in the head. The blast of gunfire startled his wife, Maxine. She opened her eyes and looked directly into the devil's eyes.

But the valley intruder changed his plans. Richard tied Maxine to the bed. He demanded their valuables, money, jewelry, anything. While Richard began ransacking the bedroom, looking for valuables, Maxine got her hands free. After freeing herself, she reached underneath the bed and grabbed a shotgun. Unfortunately, the gun wasn't loaded.

Once Richard discovered that Maxine freed herself from the bed and was now aiming an unloaded shotgun at her, he went into what could only be described as rage. He grabbed his .22 caliber and shot her three times in the face. He left the bedroom, walked into the kitchen, and grabbed the largest carving knife possible. He walked back to the master bedroom, took the knife, and began stabbing Maxine.

Next, he used the same knife to gouge both her eyes and place them inside a jewelry box. Once satisfied, he grabbed the jewelry box and left. Their son Peter discovered Maxine and Charles' bodies. And just like in previous crime scenes, Richard left very little forensic evidence behind. Except this time, investigators found a footprint.

Richard left behind a footprint from a pair of Avia sneakers in a flower bed just outside of the home. And it wasn't just any footprint. It was a footprint with a story. Police found the footprint underneath a window, a window the intruder used to get inside. Investigators made one more connection between the Zazara murders and the previous murders.

They recovered bullets inside of the Zazara home that matched those found at earlier crime scenes. All bullets belonged to the same .22 caliber gun. The police were hunting a serial killer. When we first meet someone, our smile is often the first thing people notice about us, whether that's on a first date or at a job interview. A smile can tell a lot about a person.

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Following the murders of the Zazaras, Cy Lian Yu, Dale Okasaki, and attempted murder of Maria Hernandez within 10 days of each other, people were terrified. If you lived anywhere in LA, you locked your doors at night. You barricaded your windows. You always looked behind you. But even with the rising pressure to identify a suspect, Richard kept killing.

As spring turned to summer in 1985, Richard claimed another dozen victims. In May 1985, he returned to Monterey Park where he shot and killed 66-year-old Bill Doy and sexually assaulted his disabled wife Lillian. Bill later died at the hospital where Lillian survived the attack.

Two weeks later, on May 29th, Richard drove a stolen car to Monrovia. He stopped at the house of 80-year-old sisters Ma Bell and Nettie Lang. After entering the home, he grabbed a hammer from the kitchen. He bludgeoned and raped 81-year-old Nettie inside of her bedroom. Next, he crushed Ma with a hammer and strangled her with a telephone cord.

But before leaving the house, Richard did something new, something original. He left behind a signature. Serial killers will often leave behind a signature at the crime scene. It's like the killer's personal stamp. A serial killer's signature can reveal a lot about the offender. Sometimes the symbol says, hey, look at me. I was here. I'm the one responsible. It's a way to take credit for the crime.

Other times, it's used to reveal fantasy-driven rituals. These rituals are based on the offender's needs or compulsions. A signature might even be just for effect. We see this when an offender poses their victims sexually or provocatively, or carves something into their bodies. A serial killer's signature originates more from their unique personality rather than what's needed to commit a murder.

In Richard's case, before he left Ma Bell and Nettie Lang's home, he left behind a signature, a satanic pentagram symbol on the bedroom walls. The discovery of the satanic pentagrams caused the media to change Richard's nickname from the Valley Intruder to the Night Stalker. This signature meant that not only did Los Angeles have a serial killer on the loose, they had a devil-worshipping serial killer on the loose.

The day after Richard left his signature at Ma Bell's and Nettie Lang's home, he made his way to Burbank for a date with his next victim. After arriving in Burbank, he entered the home of 42-year-old Carol Kyle. At gunpoint, he tied Carol up alongside her 11-year-old son. After he repeatedly sexually assaulted her, he handcuffed Carol and her son together and disappeared.

Over the next couple of weeks, things were quiet throughout Los Angeles. The killings seemed to slow down. Maybe this meant the Night Stalker was done. But murder school was still in session. On July 2nd, the Night Stalker re-emerged in Arcadia. He broke into 75-year-old Mary Louise Cannon's home, bludgeoned her with a lamp, and stabbed her with a 10-inch kitchen knife. She was discovered the next day dead.

From July 5th to August 8th, Richard broke into six more homes. On July 5th, he broke into the Glendale home with a tire iron where 16-year-old Whitney Bennett lived. After strangling her and beating her, she somehow managed to survive. However, it would take over 400 stitches to repair the laceration to her scalp. After Whitney Bennett, it was 60-year-old Joyce Nelson in Monterey Park.

Finding her asleep on the couch, Richard beat her to death by kicking her in the head. By July 20th, Richard upgraded his choice of murder weapons. He purchased a machete before breaking into the Glendale home of Layla and Maxon Needing. Like many of the victims before, he assaulted them with a machete while sleeping. Both were killed. Just a few hours after he murdered the Needings, he broke into the Kovaneth family home.

First, he shot the husband in the head, then sexually assaulted and beat his wife. Before leaving the house, he bound the couple's eight-year-old and dragged him around the entire house. By August, he broke in and assaulted two more families in Northridge and Diamond Bar. It seemed as though the night stalker was going to continue to kill until he was stopped.

Some of the Night Stalkers' attacks left behind survivors. A handful of people who laid eyes on the devil himself. Survivors who provided the police with eyewitness descriptions. Everyone throughout L.A. was on the lookout for the Night Stalker. Survivors provided similar descriptions.

They described him as a white or Hispanic man, rotting teeth, bad body odor, curly or shaggy hair with bulging, wide spaced eyes. The police posted the night soccer's description on every inch of the city. The increase in public awareness of Richard's appearance forced him to leave L.A. in August of 1985. He left L.A. and headed up to Northern California.

a place where he'd select two more victims, Peter and Barbara Pan in San Francisco. At the Pans, he left behind his signature, the satanic pentagram symbol across the bedroom. The Night Stalker traveled north. During the summer of 1985, Los Angeles police launched a full-scale operation to track down the Night Stalker.

But after each crime scene, it seemed as though the police weren't getting any closer to identifying a suspect. The Night Stalker was excellent about not leaving behind any physical or forensic evidence at every crime scene. Except for one thing. Something collected at several of the murder locations was footprints. Footprints that belonged to the same men's Avia sneaker.

The police first found this footprint at the Zazara family murder in Whittier, but they also found the same footprint at Joyce Nellen's house in Monterey Park, as well as the pans in San Francisco. When tested, all of the footprints matched a specific Avias sneaker. This sneaker footprint quickly became one of the investigators' best chance to finally catch the Night Stalker.

Investigators in Los Angeles and San Francisco began searching to find where that size 11.5 Avia sneaker was manufactured and distributed. They were hopeful that if they could find where the distributor sold that particular pair of shoe in LA, that it would lead them to their suspect. After some digging, investigators hit gold.

Investigators learned that only six pairs of that particular Avia shoe existed in size 11 1⁄2. Of the six pairs that were created, five of them were shipped to Arizona, and one pair was sold in California. The police believed that pair belonged to the Night Stalker. As police tracked down the manufacturer of the Avia size 11 1⁄2 shoe, Richard returned to Southern California.

He left San Francisco after Mayor Dianne Feinstein announced they had key evidence in the Night Stalker case. On August 24, 1985, Richard drove a stolen Toyota over 70 miles south of Los Angeles to Mission Viejo. He attempted to break into the home of James Romero Jr., but before he could get inside, Romero's son heard noises.

The son immediately alerted his dad, allowing Richard to flee. But before he could get away, Romero caught a glimpse of the prowler, and he was able to capture his car's make, model, and license plate. After fleeing the Romeros, Richard still had the itch to kill. He entered the home of 30-year-old Bill Carnes and his fiancée, Inez Erickson.

Once inside, he shot and killed Bill, then sexually assaulted Inez. Before he left, he made sure to tell Inez that he was the Night Stalker. And then he forced her to swear that she loved Satan. Richard's final victim, Inez Erickson, survived the attack. Like earlier victims, she was able to provide the police with her attacker's physical description.

On August 28th, an abandoned car was found. The same stolen car Richard used to drive to Mission Viejo was now in police custody. But police found more than just the car. They found a fingerprint. The police recovered a single fingerprint from the rearview mirror of the car. Although Richard carefully wiped the car clean of prints, he missed one. The police identified the fingerprints as belonging to Richard Ramirez.

After months of terror, the Night Stalker finally had a name. But a name doesn't mean an arrest. They still needed to find the Night Stalker. Richard Ramirez's photo aired on every national news station. Every person across the nation was on the lookout for him. As soon as Richard's name was made public, Angelenos took the law into their own hands.

Los Angeles had been terrorized for months by this serial killer. They weren't just going to sit back and wait for the police. Enough was enough. On August 30th, Richard boarded a bus headed towards Tucson, Arizona. He planned to visit his brother. Having no idea the media just broadcast his photo on every national TV news outlet, Richard was no longer a shadow.

After failing to meet up with his brother, he noticed several people eyeing him on the bus. A group of Hispanic women even whispered El Matador in his direction. The stairs made him feel uncomfortable. After getting off the bus, Richard picked up a newspaper from a newsstand. On front of the newspaper was his very own face, headlined The Night Stalker.

Once Richard realized he's been identified, he tried getting away by attempting to steal a car. Once that didn't work, he started to run. After hopping over several fences, a group of bystanders chased him down. The Angelenos began relentlessly beating him. Luckily for the killer, the police arrived. Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, was finally in police custody.

After months of terrorizing Los Angeles residents, the police arrested Richard Ramirez on August 30th, 1985. Even though he was finally behind bars, justice for his victims wouldn't be swift. Richard sat in jail awaiting trial for three long years. Some of the charges against him were dropped in order to expedite what was becoming a marathon to justice.

The trial finally got underway in July of 1988. He was charged with 13 counts of murder, 5 counts of attempted murder, 11 counts of sexual assault, and 14 counts of burglary. If he was found guilty, he was facing the death penalty. What was even more remarkable than the trial itself was the number of supporters who showed up to court on Richard Ramirez's behalf.

Supporters who were almost entirely female. Throughout the criminal trial, hundreds of women showed up to court in a cult-like fashion, many dressed in all black. Many were self-proclaimed Satan worshippers.

Richard Ramirez loved the attention. During the trial, he thought of himself as being a celebrity. He himself would also come into court dressed in all black, paired with dark sunglasses. He felt like a star. Except he wasn't a star. He wasn't a celebrity. He was on trial for murdering over a dozen innocent people and sexually assaulting countless women.

Shortly after the trial began, it was delayed again. The judge delayed the trial after a juror was murdered on August 14, 1989. In the beginning, many speculated that Richard was somehow involved in this juror's death. Even behind bars, people still feared the Night Stalker. After a short delay, the trial resumed for the second time.

On September 20, 1989, the jury came back with a unanimous verdict on 43 charges, including 13 counts of murder, 5 counts of attempted murder, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. The Night Stalker was guilty. Two weeks later, Richard Ramirez returned to court for sentencing.

The same jury that found him guilty on 43 criminal charges also voted unanimously for the death penalty. The judge agreed with the jury and sentenced him to death by gas chamber. On his way out of court after being sentenced to death, Richard told reporters, Hey, big deal. Death always comes with a territory. I'll see you in Disneyland.

After Richard Ramirez was sentenced to die by gas chamber, he was sent to San Quentin Prison in California to spend the remaining days of his life. But his days in the state's highest security prison weren't exactly lonely. During his time at San Quentin in 1996, he married one of his longtime supporters, Doreen Leoye.

Together, Doreen and Richard fought to have his case appealed by the California Supreme Court, but by 2006, the court denied his appeal. While Richard was in prison, forensic evidence linked him to additional crimes. In 2009, his DNA was connected to the April 1984 rape and murder of a nine-year-old girl from Northern California.

As DNA testing continues to evolve, Richard Ramirez may be linked to additional crimes in the future. After spending 20 years on death row, Richard Ramirez died on June 13, 2013 at the age of 53. He wasn't executed like he was supposed to have been. He died in prison from complications of B-cell lymphoma.

A death unfitting of someone responsible for so much terror and heartache. The discovery of key physical and forensic evidence led police to the Night Stalker's identification. The police matched Richard Ramirez's fingerprints found at several crime scenes with a single print on an abandoned car. The police tracked down the distributor of a size 11.5 Avia sneaker.

a sneaker with only one pair sold in Los Angeles. The sneakers whose footprints belong to Richard Ramirez. So much blood, so much grief, and so much terror. Luckily for us, the devil wore Avia sneakers. To share your thoughts on the Night Stalker, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at Forensic Tales.

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To learn more, please visit patreon.com slash forensic tales. All right, you guys, thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next week. We'll have a brand new case, a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio Production.

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