The Night Stalker is back in the news.
Apparently, Netflix is running a well-reviewed series/documentary about the serial killer Richard Ramirez (the "Night Stalker" ) who terrorized Los Angeles in 1984/5. Earlier this year HLN also unveiled a two-part, two-hour documentary on the same.
Did any DUers live in Los Angeles around this time, or perhaps live in other areas but follow these crimes? Or have any of you watched this new Netflix program? I'd be interested to see your views.
I was a junior in college living near downtown Los Angeles during this period, and during the summers I lived on the second floor of a a light-colored fraternity house with unlocked doors (and briefly no front door at all) that had proximate access to both the 110 and Santa Monica Freeways. I was running at 4 A.M. without a care in the world, and blissfully unaware we had a active serial killer rampaging through Los Angeles until the very end of August 1985 when I heard on the radio of a huge commotion in East Los Angeles leading to the capture of Richard Ramirez.
Looking back at Ramirez, the most interesting thing to me is that he was somewhat different than a lot of serial killers in that he had no victim preference and vague objectives. His only concerns were: Can I find a house that I can make entry into? Is it light-colored enough that I can see what I'm doing as I scale the exterior in the dark? (Thus, he showed preference for white and yellow colored homes). Is the house close to a freeway so I can quickly escape? He seemed to like to enter the second storey of dwellings. Although he did sexually assault many of his victims, that was not a primary consideration. Age was irrelevant, as he killed the very young and the elderly. Gender was irrelevant. He didn't seek out homes in wealthy areas; so, although he stole, seeking items of value was not a priority for him either. Maybe he sought to dominate whatever environment he entered, and part of the appeal of entering blindly is he never knew who or what he would encounter? I'll leave that speculation to the forensic psychiatrists.
Interestingly, I don't know if Ramirez was ever seriously, intensely interviewed by experts who study serial killers the way others have been. His crime scenes were in some ways so different that I wonder if experts would say he had a signature, like other SKs. The signature is some act committed during the crime that answers the question: What need is the murderer gratifying by committing this crime? Ramirez left gratfitti pentagrams at some crime scenes, and that is a "calling card" but not a signature.
Here is some background on the case, and a review of the Netflix series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ramirez
Summary:
He used a wide variety of weapons, including handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron, and a hammer. Ramirez, who claimed to be a Satanist, never expressed any remorse for his crimes.[1] The judge who upheld Ramirez's nineteen death sentences remarked that his deeds exhibited "cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding".[2] Ramirez was convicted in 1989 of thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries[3] and died of complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California's death row.
Early Life:
Ramirez was present on May 4, 1973, when his cousin Mike fatally shot his wife, Jessie, in the face with a .38 caliber revolver during a domestic argument.[12] After the shooting, Ramirez became sullen and withdrawn from his family and peers. Later that year, he moved in with his older sister, Ruth, and her husband, Roberto, an obsessive "peeping Tom" who took Richie along on his nocturnal exploits.[13] Ramirez also began using LSD and cultivated an interest in Satanism.[14] Mike was found not guilty of Jessie's murder by reason of insanity and was released in 1977, after four years of incarceration at the Texas State Mental Hospital. His influence over Ramirez continued.[15][16]
The adolescent Ramirez began to meld his burgeoning sexual fantasies with violence, including forced bondage and rape.[17] While still in school, he took a job at a local Holiday Inn, where he used his passkey to rob sleeping patrons.[18] His employment ended abruptly after Ramirez attempted to rape a woman in her hotel room, before her husband returned to find them.[19] Although the husband beat Ramirez senseless at the scene, criminal charges were dropped when the couple, who lived out of state, declined to return to testify against him.[20]
Netflix Series Review:
‘Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer’ is controversially immersive
Adopting the perspective of detective Carrillo was an interesting and necessary decision for telling this macabre story. The choice lets viewers approach the events clinically, interpreting disparate facts and attempting to form patterns that aren’t immediately apparent. As the number of victims increases and their stories are told, the audience empathizes with the victims and searches for clues to seek justice for them. Carrillo’s storytelling is aided by the accounts of victims who survived, fellow law enforcement agents and reporters who covered the cases. It’s also notable that, while most true crime tales tend to highlight police incompetence, “Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer” paints detective Carrillo and his partner Frank Salerno as highly skilled investigators searching for answers.
Ultimately, the combination of storytelling devices forms a cohesive and nuanced picture of how unprecedented violence can affect a community and, perhaps even harder to watch, how there are phantom traces of humanity within reckless, unthinkable cruelty.
https://www.michigandaily.com/section/arts/%E2%80%98night-stalker-hunt-serial-killer%E2%80%99-controversially-immersive
I take polite exception to the implication of this sentence:
There was no "mirage of peace" in Los Angeles. Although I didn't appreciate it at the time, Los Angeles (and California generally), had been a haven for serial killers for over a decade when the Night Stalker began to make headlines. Only a few years before, Los Angeles had been terrorized by two overlapping serial killer teams you possibly have heard of: The Hillside Stranglers, and Lawrence Bittaker and his demented partner Roy Norris. I wonder if people had almost become a little bit blase about it. By 1984, just in California alone, there had been numerous active serial killers:
The Zodiac
The Hillside Stranglers (Los Angeles)
Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris (Los Angeles)
William Bonin (Los Angeles)
Randy Kraft (Los Angeles)
Leonard Lake and Charles Ng
Ed Kemper
Santa Rosa Hitchhiker murders
And that's just a few of the ones that made headlines. I wonder if people were beginning to realize this was an emerging phenomenon that we might have to accept as an ongoing development in our society. By 1984 the idea of an active serial killer was not a novelty. And Southern California had seen its fair share.
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