"Night Hunter"

The story of the Satanist killer, who held in fear the entire western coast of the United States for a year and a half

Richard Ramirez is one of the most bloody serial killers of America of the 1980s. On his account is at least 43 crimes. He worshiped Satan, hid for more than a year from justice, and when he got into prison, he suddenly received the support of fans.

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On April afternoon 1984, nine-year-old May Lyun from San Francisco played with her younger brother near the house. At one point, the children lost a dollar bill, and Maywent in search. On the way, she met a young guy with chestnut, slightly curly hair and a friendly look. The stranger offered to help her with the search. May agreed.

A few minutes later they found themselves in the dark basement of the house where May lived, and the man raped her, and then inflicted several blows with a knife and strangled it . Half an hour later, the girl’s brother found his sister hanged on the pipe.

“When we saw the body, it was like the crucifixion of Christ. She hung, and her head and chin were lowered, ”the police Ronald Schneider recalled .

May became the victim of Richard Ramirez, the media called him a "night hunter." This incident was the first in a series of murders that terrified all the inhabitants of the Western coast for a year and a half.

Obsessed with death

Richard Ramirez was born in 1960 in the city of El Paso, an industrial center near the Mexican border, and was a fifth child in the family of Mexican emigrants Mercedes and Hulian Ramiresov.

Richard's father served in the Mexican army and, after moving to the United States, got a job to work on the railway. The mother worked in a shoe factory, where she was often exposed to toxic chemical vapors, the dangers of which were not known at that time. All the brothers and sisters of Richard had congenital disorders : from difficulty breathing to deformation of the bones, because of which Ruben, the elder brother of Richard, forever remained disabled.

According to one version, health problems in the local population are associated with radioactive precipitation, which appeared after nuclear tests in nearby New Mexico.

To feed the family, Mercedes and Julian spent most of his time at work. Richard was actually left to himself - often he was left alone and fell into trouble.

When Richard was two years old, he reached for the radio and a chest of drawers fell on his head. In the hospital, he was imposed 30 seams, and doctors diagnosed a concussion. Three years later, Richard shot down children's swings. In the fifth grade, during school classes he began seizures, then doctors diagnosed him with an epilepsy.

Richard’s relationship with his family was difficult. Julian was a harsh father and often beat his children for any offenses.

Despite the fact that Richard had four older brothers and sisters, he spent most of his time with his cousin Miguel - a veteran of the war in Vietnam. Miguel liked to tell stories about how he raped and killed the locals for fun. And he showed his brother a polarid photos of dead women.

Later, Richard Ramirez admitted that the bodies of dead girls caused him sexual excitement. He understood that there was something wrong with this, but was afraid to say about it so as not to substitute his brother.

The wife of Miguel, Jesse, did not like that he was spending most of his time with his younger brother. She wanted Miguel to get a job - on this basis they often had conflicts.

During one of these quarrels, Miguel in front of Richard and his children took out a revolver and shot Jesse in the head. He was arrested and, as reported by The New York Times, sentenced to seven years in prison. According to another version, Miguel was also sent for compulsory treatment to a psychiatric hospital. Ramirez later recalled that it was then that he became obsessed with death, crimes and murders. As a teenager, Richard sniffed glue, smoked marijuana, spent the night in cemeteries and stole things from his classmates. In punishment, he received beatings from his father. One night, Julian took his son to the cemetery and left him until the morning chain to the cross.

First blood

When he was 15 years old, Ramirez began to earn extra money at the Holiday Inn Hotel. He followed the guests through the holes in the curtains, and penetrated at night into their rooms to steal valuable things. Once he hid in the closet, while one of the guests was in the bathroom, and then tried to rape her, but the woman’s husband entered the room. Ramirez was arrested, but the police removed the charges after the married couple refused to return to El Paso to testify. Richard was fired, and he continued to steal.

On December 7, 1977 he was arrested again. This time on suspicion of storing marijuana. During the search, the police found a ski mask, a toy pistol and a stolen wallet at Richard. After that, he was arrested three more times in the same suspicions. In the first two cases, he avoided punishment: one thing was closed at the stage of pre-trial proceedings, the second-due to insufficient evidence. But in the third case of 1982, Ramirez was found guilty - he was appointed 50 days of conditional term and a fine of $ 115.

At 18, Richard left El Paso and moved to Los Angeles. There he began to consume cocaine, at the same time increasing the number of thefts. Ramirez studied the city surroundings in stolen cars and sometimes spent the night in them.

Then he began to read the books of Anton Lawa, the founder of the church of Satan. And he explained his crimes with the service of the devil. Once Ramires stole a car to get to the Satanist ceremony in San Francisco. After that, he called his mother and said that Satan touched him.

In 1982, Ramirez was arrested for theft of cars, and he spent several months in prison. After the release, Richard completely lost touch with his family. At this time, his sister came to Los Angeles to find her brother, and found him at the bus stop, but he refused to stay with her. He lived in a motel in the city center and continued to use drugs. After the murder of nine-year-old May, the 79-year-old resident of Glassel Park Jenny Winkou became the victim of Ramirez. On June 28, 1984, Richard made his way to her house through an open window. He attacked a sleeping woman and inflicted many stabs in the head, neck and chest. At the end, Ramirez cut Jenny's throat, almost decapitating it, but even then he managed to avoid the capture.

The sacrifice for the victim

On March 17, 1985, the office of the young investigator Gila Carrillo received a message about the murder in the Rosemid area. At the crime scene, the police found the body of the 34-year-old Dale Okazaki, who was lying on a kitchen floor with a shot head.

During the attack, her neighbor, Maria Ernandes, returned home. She opened the back door of the garage and heard strange sounds. The girl turned around and saw a man with a gun in her hands. Maria raised her hands, a shot rang out, and she fell to the ground. Ramirez crossed her body and entered the house. The bullet fed from the ligament of the keys - the girl remained alive. When the attacker left, she jumped up and ran down the street and heard another shot. Frightened by the life of a neighbor, she went around the house from the other side and again saw Ramirez, but he did not shoot again and left. 40 minutes after the attack, Ramirez shot another 30-year-old girl-Tsai Lan Yu. Both victims were killed from a pistol with a caliber of 0.22 inches, but for investigators this was not enough to tie the crimes.

"Night Hunter"

After 10 days, in the Uitter district, a double murder occurred in the house of Vincent and Maxim Zazara. Ramirez penetrated the house through the open window in the toilet and first of all killed the man with a shot in the temple. The corpse of a woman was found with a cut vagina and a lot of stab wounds. Ramirez raped her, dug his eyes and took them with him as a trophy. In addition, he stole jewelry worth more than 40 thousand dollars. This murder gave the investigators a new clue - a trace of the sole on the flowerbed by the house.

At the same time, news appeared that attempts to abduct children became more frequent in Los Angeles. Six -year -old Anastasia Chronas lay in bed when a window opened in her room and an unfamiliar man woke her.

“I have not woken up yet and did not understand what was happening. I thought I know him. When we got into the car, he said: “Open the glove compartment.” There was a gun there, ” recalls Chronas.

According to Chronas, when they drove up to the house, Ramirez forced her to climb into her bag. In it, he brought her into the house. It was dirty inside the house, the windows hung with the cloth did not let the light pass.

Ramirez raped the girl for several hours, and then he took the gas station and said to call 911 to be taken away by her parents.

“The descriptions that I received from Maria Ernandes, and the testimony of children were very similar. They talked about the same man: a high thin man of a Latin American with dark hair and brown teeth. I believed that we had a serial killer responsible for killing women and kidnapping children, ” said Gil Carrillo. - Few people believed in it, because we have not yet encountered such criminals. Colleagues laughed at me. ”

On July 5, 1985, Ramirez beat a 16-year-old Whitney Bennett and tried to strangle it with a telephone wire. When the wire sparkled, Ramirez thought that Jesus intervened in her salvation, and escaped. The girl received many lacerated wounds, 478 seams were applied to her in the hospital. In the house, Whitney foreshadows found a bedspread with an identical one from the boot. Later, these same tracks were found in other places of crime.

“Then we were convinced that we were dealing with a serial killer,” recalled investigator Frank Salerno, who investigated this case with Gil Carrillo.

The forensics conducted an examination and found that the traces were left by the sneakers of Avia 43.5 sizes. According to the testimony of witnesses, it was possible to establish that the killer wore black shoes. Avia was not a popular brand, so their sneakers did not meet so often. Investigators learned that in total in Los Angeles they sold only one model suitable for all characteristics.

At that moment, the investigators were a step away from the capture of Ramirez. The police received a message that in the northeastern region of Los Angeles there was an attempt to abduct a girl who managed to fight off the criminal. Ramirez disappeared on a stolen Toyota and violated the rules of the road along the way - he was stopped by the patrol. Richard was not right. The policeman ordered him to get out of the car and went to write out a fine. But Ramirez heard a policeman by an attempt to abduct and give orientation on his car. Then he drew a pentagram on a dirty hood and fled.

According to Salerno, problems with the coordination of security forces prevented the criminal. The police did not have a single mechanism of interaction. Each area of ​​Los Angeles is subject to its jurisdiction, and each of them had its own investigators, who competed among themselves and did not share information.

“The car was driven to the parking lot. Gil and I went there to remove fingerprints, but we were assured that they would be taken without us. We missed the opportunity to get evidence that could lead us to the killer, ” said Salerno.

When Salerno and Carrillo got to admission to the parking lot, it turned out that all this time the car was under the sun, which made an examination impossible. Inside the salon, the investigators found the dentist’s business card and went to this clinic.

“I persuaded the dentist to give me pictures and showed them to my friend, also a dentist. He said that the suspect would definitely return, otherwise he would die in pain, ” said Carrillo.

For several days in dentistry were police officers in civilian clothes and waited for Ramirez. Then they were withdrawn and left the doctor an alarming button. When Richard came to the clinic, she did not work and he managed to hide.

With every week, the number of victims grew. All the murders united special cruelty: the attacker shot men, scored women to death and raped children, sometimes leaving the pentagram in the crimes of the crime. Journalists called the killer a "night hunter."

This is he

There were many ridiculous rumors around the killer: someone believed that he would attack only one-story houses, and someone-that he was choosing a housing painted in Bely. People purchased weapons, did not go out at night, hung additional castles and kept holding the windows closed, despite the exhausting heat.

Ramirez watched the media write about him, and in August 1985 he returned to San Francisco. There he attacked the 66-year-old Peter Pan and his wife Barbar Pan. He tried to kill them with a shot in the head, but Barbara managed to survive. The police inspector Frank Falzon recalled that after the murder, Ramirez ate everything that was in the refrigerator, then he was dragged on the floor of the kitchen, then he was anointed in the living room and scribbled a pentagram on the bedroom wall.

After this incident, the mayor of San Francisco Diane Feinstayn made an appeal and announced a reward of 10 thousand dollars for the capture of the killer. During the press conference, she revealed all the information that the investigators had: she spoke about the prints of shoes and the caliber of the Ramirez Pistol. This deprived the investigators of advantage and has threatened the course of the investigation. Richard got rid of evidence and returned back to Los Angeles.

On August 24, 1985, a woman turned to the police, who said that her boyfriend was shot in the head, and she was raped. Ramirez told her that he was a “night hunter”, and made her swear in love to Satan.

On the same day, James Romero, a young guy who transported newspapers, told the investigators that he had seen a suspicious car and remembered part of the number. It was a Toyota orange color, which was later found in the city center. The forensics were able to find fingerprints on the rear view mirror. At the same time, investigators from San Francisco established the name of the killer. It turned out that he sold a stolen bracelet to one of the local residents. The police hit him to give him a buyer - he was Ramirez.

A murderer-star

On August 30, 1985, Salerno and Corillo found Ramirez's personal file and compared fingerprints. The next day, the Los Angeles police department and the San Francisco police department staged a press conference where they announced the identity of the “night stalker”. His photograph appeared on the front of the newspapers. Later it turned out that Ramirez at that time was in Arizona and returned to Los Angeles on a regular bus.

When he left, he immediately saw his face on the bands of newspapers. Having panicked, he decided to sit on the next bus and leave the city, but the passengers recognized him and raised his noise. At first, Ramirez managed to escape, but soon the locals caught him. After a year and a half of the investigation, the police detained the "night hunter." Near the site in which Ramireza was held, several hundred people gathered, each of them clapped, and the whole city rejoiced.

According to Alan Johelson, Deputy District Prosecutor, Ramirez constantly played the public and drank attention. At a meeting on October 25, 1985, Ramirez came to the courtroom with a pentagram drawn in his palm. He did not admit his guilt when he was given the last word Richard said : "Glory to Satan."

While Ramirez was expecting a sentence, fans began to write to him. The girls admired that he managed to avoid punishment for so long. They sent naked photos, filled pentagram tattoos and supported Richard during meetings. On one of them-41-year-old journalist Dorin Loy-he married, already in prison.

The court accused him of 43 crimes: 13 murders, many robberies and rape. On November 7, 1989, he was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Ramirez said that he would not dispute the verdict and left the courtroom with a smile. Despite this, according to American laws, all death sentences are repeatedly passed by several courts - this process can last years. The judicial protocols of Ramirez, which required a thorough study, totaled 48325 pages and became one of the most voluminous for the entire judicial practice.

The Night Hunter died on June 7, 2013 from blood cancer, without waiting for his execution.