“I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil, legions of the night – night breed – repeat not the errors of the Night Stalker and show no mercy.” – Richard Ramirez

1960 was a leap year, one of those February 29ths that rarely happen, a special day. A sunny day in El Paso, Texas that got up to 67 degrees by noon. A day that gave birth to one of the most notorious serial killers in history, California’s Night Stalker.  Richard Ramirez.

Ramirez grew up in Texas, with an abusive father and a mother who could do nothing to stop him. “Richie” got close to an older cousin who showed him graphic pictures of abuse he heaped upon the people of Vietnam while he was stationed there. Telling him stories of rape and torture and showing 12-year-old Richie his prized photo of him posing with a woman’s head he had cut off.  That was just one of the many things that shaped Richard Ramirez and sent him to his lifetime worship of Satan. By the time he left Texas for California at 22, he was primed to kill.

Darlene and Jen examine how he ended up in California and the multitude of murders, assaults, burglaries and attempted murders that held Southern California hostage for a year until he was caught, not by the police but a group of citizens from one of the neighborhoods he had terrorized.

Plus some interesting info about DNA at a crime scene that wasn’t his….What do you think happened at that scene? Do you believe Ramirez made a pact with the devil?  Was he crazy? Or evil?

Embed from Getty Images