He looked like any other child — dark eyes, shy smile, innocent face.
Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1960, he would become one of America’s most feared killers.
A childhood of terror
The youngest of five in a Mexican American family, his father ruled with violent rage. By age six, he’d suffered severe head injuries, developing epilepsy. His father once tied him to a cemetery cross overnight. By ten, he was drinking and using drugs, escaping into the desert to hunt and mutilate animals.
At fifteen, he witnessed his cousin — a Vietnam vet who showed him photos of torture — shoot his wife in the face. From then, he withdrew completely, dropped out of school, and turned to crime.
The Night Stalker emerges
In 1984, he killed nine-year-old Mei Leung in San Francisco. Two months later, he murdered 79-year-old Jennie Vincow — the beginning of his reign of terror across California.
Between March and August 1985, he broke into homes at random, killing men, women, and children. His crimes mixed brutal violence with Satanic rituals — pentagrams, mutilations, and forced oaths to the devil. The press called him “The Night Stalker.”
Caught by chance
Police finally got a break when a 13-year-old boy noted the license plate of a suspicious car, leading to a fingerprint match: Richard Ramirez. When his photo was released, locals recognized him, chased him down, and held him until police arrived.
Trial and death
In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders and sentenced to death. He sneered, “Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”
He spent 24 years on death row, married a fan, and died in 2013 of lymphoma — never showing remorse.
Looking back at his childhood photo, it’s hard to believe how such evil began — and that no one saw it coming.