The thigh of Malvia Keller, a victim of Richard Ramirez ‘The Night Stalker’. She had been bound and beaten around the head with a hammer and her ribs had been crushed by a table. Ramirez then drew a pentagram on her thigh with lipstick.
“The necessity to be myself passes all moral barriers.”
-Richard Ramirez.
The images above are crime scenes of Richard Ramirez, The Night Stalker.
The analysis of the crime scene characteristics for each crime, when possible, with supporting argumentation. To include consideration of, at the minimum:
Interview with Richard Ramirez
Interviewer: When did you actively start to bring the devil into your life, worship-wise?
Richard: It was about 1980, and I was hustling on the streets. I landed in jail for a month or two for petty theft. I met up with this guy who was a Satan worshiper. For those two months I was with him, then I get out of jail, but my mind didn’t. I remembered everything he said, which basically was, “Why worship the good guy, when the things you do aren’t so good?” Somehow it just made sense to me, to worship something that would protect you in what you were doing.
Interviewer: How did your worship take form?
Richard: It developed slowly. I started reading the books, and then I started meeting people who were into the same thing. Satanists need to have more faith than Christians, because Christ was seen and felt. Lucifer has never felt the need to be seen, but in everyone’s soul he can be felt. A lot of these little cults practice Satanism nowadays, but not in a violent form. They’re only looking for ways to play out wickedness.
Interviewer: Ever tried your hand at a Black Mass?
Richard: Only one, but kept my distance. I was not part of that group. It was at a cemetery and it was at night. I really couldn’t tell what we were doing. A friend and me were watching from a distance. I never trusted people anyway. Especially them.
Childhood Trauma in Serial Killers
Physical trauma, particularly head injuries, is evident in the childhood histories of many serial killers. Earle Leonard Nelson was dragged under a streetcar at age ten and remained in a coma for six days; Carlton Gary, Richard Ramirez, and John Wayne Gacy were knocked unconscious by playground swings; Gary Heidnik fell out of a tree in grade school, causing an injury that prompted his classmates to call him “football head”; Bobby Joe Long fell from a pony and remained nauseated and dizzy for weeks; Max Gufler was subject to uncontrollable outbursts it rage after being struck on the head with a rock at age nine. The FBI sexual killer study showed that 29 percent of the subjects were “accident prone” in childhood.
Handcuffs used by Richard Ramirez to handcuff a victim to the bed while he raped and sodomized her.
“Ted Bundy was intelligent. He.. he grew up and he found… in his mind… his own pleasures. These were his pleasures. A man’s own pleasures are his own business, I think. He liked to do what he did, which was kidnap women, have sex with them, torture them, and kill them and whatever else. On the outside, to whomever he met on the street he seemed like a very normal man, one you would never suspect of doing such things.”
-Richard Ramirez.
The night of was 5 August 1985 was hot and humid in the residential suburbs of Los Angeles. Thousands of families were tucked up for the night, oblivious to any unseen dangers lurking outside their homes. Christopher Petersen, a truck driver, and his wife Virginia, a postal worker, were asleep in their one-storey home five miles from the Simi Valley freeway, when Virginia’s rest was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of an intruder. Sitting up in bed, she called out, “Who are you? What do you want?” Virginia froze in horror as she heard the intruder laugh, and saw the gun he was pointing at her. There was a shot, and she felt her face explode. The bullet had entered her cheek, just missing her left eye, and passed through the back of her head. As Christopher Petersen leaped to his wife’s defence a second shot rang out. This time the bullet from the intruder’s gun passed through his temple, lodging at the base of his brain.
In the next room, the Petersens’ young daugter called out, “Mommy, what’s going on?” Amazingly, the Petersens had survived. Virginia felt no pain, and thought that they had been hit with a stun gun. Blood poured from Christopher Petersen’s head, but he was not finished yet. A big, strong man, he flew into a rage when he heard the intruder laughing. He dived out of the bed and chased him from the bedroom. Suddenly it was his assailant’s turn to feel scared. Panicked, he ran from the house, firing twice as he fled. The kille, named Richard Ramirez whom all California had come to fear had been put to flight by a man with a bullet in his head.
“In my heart, I can’t believe he would have arrived at that. But if the authorities there have proof., what can we do? I believe the marijuana he’s been smoking put him out of control. There was a break between us. He didn’t want to do what we told him to. It was like this: I’m your father, and I tell you to not use drugs. And you want to keep using them.”
-Julian Ramirez, The Father of Richard Ramirez.
The Main Characteristics of Serial Murder
The FBI defines serial murder as repetitive killings that will not stop until the criminal is apprehended, dies or is killed. Furthermore, the serial killer is said to derive excitement, mostly of the sexual kind, and that he may take a trophy with him, such as a purse, jewelry or even a body part from his victim as a means of reliving the excitement of the deed. When this excitement subsides, the killer feels compelled to go out and kill again and the thrill may subside in quicker recession over time. Serial killings are usually one-on-one though on some occasions there are collaborations among killers. When two people join to commit multiple murders, the French term “folie a deux” is used as in the case of the Hillside Stranglers. There have been also group killings. The murders are usually accompanied with or followed by brutal violence, such as rape or mutilation and in some cases even necrophilia. In addition, there is usually a distinguishable or recognizable pattern of behavior. In some cases, there is no other apparent motive other than the desire to kill.
In the modern age, increased mobility has made it easier for serial killers to move around and it has become more difficult for the police to track them down and to identify them. As a result, the government decided to fund and implement a program called VICAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program using the expertise and knowledge of members of the FBI`s Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico. In Canada, the RCMP has its equivalent in ViCLAS, the Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System, which is considered to be among the best in the world. There are various theories about what makes a serial killer. Most of them agree, however, that a traumatic childhood involving some kind of abuse is a dangerous and fertile breeding ground for later violent behavior. Yet a serial killer remains by definition somebody who commits various murders accompanied with violence or who follows a certain criminal pattern or modus operandi as their trademark.
When Richard Ramirez was asked how to avoid becoming the victim of a serial killer, he relied:
“You can’t. Once they are focused on you, have you where you are vulnerable, you’re all theirs. Dahmer used to invite you home for a drink, and then next thing you knew, he’s eating you. Same thing with John Wayne Gacy: he put on his clown face, do a couple of tricks, and suddenly he had you handcuffed and in his control. What people can do is not trust someone you don’t know and to always be aware of what’s going on around you. When you drop your guard - that’s when a serial killer moves.
Childhood of Richard Ramirez
Richard loved music as an infant and later as a child. He would sway and move in rhythm with whatever music would be playing on a radio. He would play Cowboys and Indians, acting out both parts, to the consternation of his neighbors. He loved to get up early, drink a Coke, eat sugary breakfast cereals and watch his favorite cartoons. He especially loed scary cartoons, television programs and movies. He was a loner, “Friends remember him as a loner, even when he was a boy. Richard was not a gregarious child,” Carlo (Ramirez Biographer) recalled, adding that “He prefered to be alone.”
“Blood is the substance that allows any living thing to exist, but blood is blood. I have heard of people drinking each other’s blood. They cut each other, and they drink it and it’s supposed to be a euphoric feeling. But, you know, blood has no special interest for me. Blood is blood.”
-Richard Ramirez.