Richard ‘The Night Stalker’ Ramirez was convicted of some of the most brutal murders the state of California had ever seen. In the mid-1980s, he bludgeoned, shot, and stabbed to death 13 victims and left dozens more with life-changing injuries.
Ramirez was true evil – a type of serial killer the world had not seen before.
Since his arrest, many have been left wondering how a shy and quiet boy from El Paso, Texas, became the demon we know of today. Did ‘Cousin Mike’ – who taught a young Ramirez how to sneak into homes, how to torture women, and how to kill – have such a deadly influence that the boy grew into a cold-blooded serial killer?
After reading these disturbing facts, it would be difficult to argue that isn’t the case.
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5. Rage Runs In The Family
On February 29th, 1960, Richard Ramirez was the youngest sibling born into a working-class family in El Paso, Texas. His father, Julian, and mother, Mercedes, were both Mexican but Mercedes was born in Colorado so she had American citizenship and they were able to secure a home in El Paso where they would raise their family.
Richard had three older brothers – Ruben, Joseph, and Robert – and a sister, named Ruth. His sister said, “My brother (Richard) never slept. He was always up and moving around at night.”
Their father Julian was known for his uncontrollable rages. A behavioral pattern he likely inherited from his own father who would not hesitate to beat his children.
Julian swore because of his violent upbringing he would never lay a finger on his own children and instead turned to severe self-harm whenever he saw red.
In childhood, the siblings recalled their father was installing a sink in the kitchen and he could not get it fixed to the drainpipe. Julian stood up and in a fit of anger, took a hammer and started hitting himself in the head so hard that blood eventually began running down his face.
This was not the only incident in their childhood where they witnessed this kind of behavior from their father. Julian was also known to get so angry we would repeatedly smash his own head into a wall until he was knocked unconscious.
Later, he went against his word and began beating his eldest sons whenever he thought they had done something to deserve such punishment. Often a young Richard would sleep in the local cemetery to get away from his father’s temper.
Cousin Miguel ‘Mike’ Ramirez was on the same side of the family that possessed the genes for a short fuse and this had fatal results.
4. Mike Returns From Vietnam A War Hero
When Richard was 12-years-old, his cousin Mike returned from the Vietnam War. He had four medals and was considered a hero as, at one point, his platoon of twenty men were surrounded by the Vietcong; Mike and another soldier were the only two to make it out alive.
Mike loved that in Vietnam he could let out all his anger and aggression on the Vietnamese prisoners as it was considered his duty.
He had learned that the Vietnamese people were superstitious and if they lost a body part, then they would not go to heaven. So Mike took great pleasure in mutilating the bodies of the prisoners he captured.
Mike had a collection of polaroids that showed the mutilation of prisoners and also the rapes of many women. He also had another collection of eight shrunken heads and said he’d used these as pillows to sleep on in Vietnam.
He showed all of these photos and the shrunken heads to his impressionable cousin. Richard felt drawn to this kind of brutality. He had this confident and domineering cousin who he looked up to as a hero and someone who could no wrong in his eyes.
Mike told Richard, “Having power over life and death was a high, an incredible rush. It was Godlike. You controlled who’d live and who died.”
3. Lessons In Jungle Warfare
Mike also taught Richard “jungle warfare” – how to be invisible, how to kill with stealth, and how to burglarise homes. Mike told Richard, “It’s us, the poor and downtrodden, against them the rich and influential.”
It can, of course, be assumed that his young cousin used these techniques when he became ‘The Night Stalker’ in Los Angeles and would break into people’s homes in affluent neighborhoods, whilst under the cover of darkness and dressed in all black.
One survivor testified in court that The Night Stalker had awoken her about 1 a.m. on May 30th, 1985, by shining a flashlight in her face. He told her, “Get up. Don’t make any noise.”
Hernandez said, “He went over to my son’s bed and got up on top and put a gun to his head and told him not to do anything.”
She testified that he handcuffed her son’s hands behind his back and ransacked her home for money and jewelry. He then placed a pillow over her head and raped her.
Before he was sentenced to death row, the serial killer told the court: “I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all. That’s it.
Further Reading: 8 Disturbing Moments During The Trial of Richard Ramirez
2. The Murder of Jessie
Mike was married to a woman named Jessie and they had two sons together.
Mike had received no counseling when he returned home from the war and he had no sense of direction in life. All he wanted to do was drive around in his car all day, telling his young cousin plenty of gruesome war stories whilst they both smoked pot.
When a now 13-year-old Richard went to visit Mike at his apartment, he witnessed his cousin raise a pistol and shoot Jessie in the face at point-blank range. It was the first time Richard had ever seen someone killed right in front of him. Mike warned Richard not to tell anyone he had been a witness to the murder.
When Richard returned home, he was very distressed and upset about the murder. Although, he sat at the dinner table with his family as if nothing had happened – keeping the secret to himself.
It wasn’t long before Mike was arrested and sent to jail. Later at his trial, the jury was sympathetic because Mike was considered a war hero so they found him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was committed to a mental institution.
1. First Smell Of Blood
Julian Ramirez went to the apartment where Jessie had been killed to clean up the blood and he took Richard along with him.
This was another huge turning point in young Richard’s life. He said: “That 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 Jessie had fallen and died, and I got this kind of tingly feeling.”
The full picture of the deadly influence Cousin Mike had on young Richard’s life is quite clear to see. He has embedded in his young and impressionable mind:
- Brutality and violence is okay if it’s considered duty (later Richard believed it was his duty as a follower of Satan to carry out these murders)
- Rape, torture, mutilation, and murder gives you a “God-like feeling”
- Keep dark secrets and inner thoughts to yourself
- It’s “the poor vs the rich”
Following the murder of Jessie, Richard should have sought counseling for what he had seen. And with Mike now institutionalized; there was still a good chance that the young boy could have made his way back onto the good path.
Yet, this was not the case, as history now knows that Richard ‘The Night Stalker’ Ramirez will only be remembered for the terror, evil, and paranoia that he spread around Los Angeles.
