Hear from those involved in one of the most notorious cases in L.A. history
For more than a year starting in the spring of 1984, Los Angeles residents lived in fear of a serial killer called the Night Stalker. Richard Ramirez was a burglar and a car thief who went on to torture and kill more than a dozen people in sadistic and horrifying ways. Many of the victims were found in quiet, suburban neighborhoods and the manhunt went on for months, shaking Los Angeles in a way few crimes ever have.
“People who didn’t own guns bought guns and people started locking their windows that summer,” says retired LAPD sergeant Glynn Martin, author of Satan’s Summer in the City of Angels: The Social Impact of the Night Stalker. “People put gravel around the perimeter of their home so they could hear if someone was walking and they added new lighting,” Martin says. “One of my essayists talked about sleeping with a Louisville Slugger bat.”
Martin, now executive director of the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation, is presenting “An Evening Inside the Night Stalker Investigation” on August 8 at Steven’s Steakhouse in the city of Commerce alongside Gil Carillo, the retired LASD homicide detective who helped track down and capture the Night Stalker and Rosalinda Juarez, Ramirez’s niece who survived an attack of her own. The historic restaurant is serving a steak and lobster dinner during the talk.
Richard Ramirez (aka The Night Stalker) smiling at camera as he is escorted by sheriffs from court in Los Angeles, Calif., 1986Credit: Photo by Lacy Atkins/Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection/University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Department of Special Collections
Ramirez moved to Los Angeles at age 22 and immediately began a crime spree, stealing cars and goods he could store at the Downtown Greyhound station and fence near his seedy room at the notorious Hotel Cecil.
Investigators were able to identify Ramirez from fingerprints taken from a stolen car the killer abandoned off Wilshire Boulevard. A car he abandoned in Boyle Heights had a pentagram drawn on the dashboard, and he drew another on a wall and one on victim. Stories about Ramirez’s interest in the occult in the era of Satanic Panic further terrified the city.
Law enforcement from small towns joined the LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriff in a manhunt that ultimately ended with Ramirez being tackled by civilians in East Los Angeles who held him until police arrived. Martin remembers Mayor Tom Bradley personally showing up at the Hollenbeck police station to make sure Ramirez was in custody.
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Photograph caption dated September 4, 1985 reads, “Supervisor Ed Edelman, center, presents plaques to the men who helped capture Night Stalker suspect Richard Ramirez in an East LA neighborhood Saturday.” Standing left to right are Deputy Andres “Andy” Ramirez, Carmelo Robles, Manuel De La Torre, Jose Burgoin, Frank Moreno, and Faustino Pinon. Also pictured are Sheriff Sherman Block, Julio Burgoin, and an interpreter. Credit: Photo by Mike Sergieff/ Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
Ramirez was convicted of sixty-seven felonies, including fourteen murders, and he received nineteen death sentences. He remained incarcerated at San Quentin until his death in 2013.