appearance on the \u201cTamron Hall Show<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\nFor years, she said, those experiences were met with disbelief by members of her own family, leading her to remain silent well into adulthood.<\/p>\n
That changed, in part, through her relationship with Gil Carrillo, a retired Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department detective who helped lead the investigation into Ramirez. Carrillo encouraged her to speak publicly about her experience, eventually helping facilitate her appearance on national television.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf this is some way, some small way, being able to assist Rosie and anybody else who\u2019s listening \u2014 one of your viewers right now \u2014 then it\u2019s well worthwhile,\u201d Carrillo said during that interview.<\/p>\n
Now, Ju\u00e1rez is bringing that story directly to readers, with a series of events planned across El Paso later this month as part of Independent Bookstore Day celebrated Saturday, April 25. Ju\u00e1rez is scheduled to appear from 10 a.m. to noon at the Nook Bookstore Caf\u00e9, 3260 N. Zaragoza Road, followed by an afternoon signing from 1 to 4:30 p.m. at Margin Notes Bookbar, 7460 Cimarron Market Ave. The Westside shop will also host an Indie Bookstore Day market later that evening.<\/p>\n
Sarah Miller, owner of Margin Notes Bookbar, said hosting Ju\u00e1rez reflects the store\u2019s mission to create space for community conversations and amplify women\u2019s voices.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about creating a space where people feel seen and heard,\u201d Miller said. \u201cAnd I think her story is one that a lot of people will connect with, even if they haven\u2019t experienced exactly what she has.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ramirez, who was born and raised in El Paso, would become known as the \u201cNight Stalker.\u201d He was convicted in 1989 of 13 murders, along with multiple counts of sexual assault, burglary and other crimes tied to a series of attacks across Southern California between 1984 and 1985. His crimes drew national attention for their brutality and the fear they instilled in communities across the region. He was sentenced to death and died of natural causes in San Quentin State Prison in 2013, when he was 53.<\/p>\n
For Ju\u00e1rez, however, the story is not about the man whose crimes made headlines, but about what it meant to live with a reality she says few believed \u2014 and what it has taken to speak about it now.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BR_RosieJuarez3-e1775754156431.jpg\")
Rosie Ju\u00e1rez laughs during an interview April 7, 2026, as she recalls moments from her life and the journey that led her to share her story publicly in a new memoir. (Brandy Ruiz \/ El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n
Below is a Q&A with Ju\u00e1rez about her book, her experiences and the path that led her to share her story publicly. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Where were you born? Where did you grow up?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I was born here in El Paso. When I was 2 years old, my parents moved to Los Angeles. My mother has \u2014 or had, because she passed away \u2014 family in Los Angeles. So, that is why we moved over there. My father was seeking a different environment. He struggled with drug use and criminal activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: Can you walk me through your family tree and how you\u2019re connected to Richard Ramirez?<\/p>\n
My grandparents are Mercedes and Julian Ramirez. They had five children, my father being the oldest, Julian. And, then, there\u2019s two brothers and a sister in between. And then it is the youngest, Richard Ramirez. I am the oldest of all the grandkids. And I am the oldest daughter of my father. There\u2019s an 11-year age difference between myself and my uncle Richard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What was it like growing up in Los Angeles during that time?<\/p>\n
A: We stayed in L.A. from the time I was 2 till I was 13. We lived in Compton, we lived in South Central, we lived in Watts and we lived in East L.A. When all the drive-bys and the shootings and the Bloods and the Crips. I went to predominantly black schools all the way up until fifth grade. Then I moved, it was sixth grade, I went to East L.A. and then it was the opposite. It was mostly Hispanics. It was the Ford Boulevard school.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: What were the circumstances that brought you back to El Paso?<\/p>\n
A: At the age of 8, my brother and I would travel to El Paso every summer to visit our grandparents that lived here. So, my summers were spent here in El Paso. When everything happened with my uncle, we were supposed to go back at the end of the summer (before her freshman year). But, because of all the media frenzy, we ended up having to stay here. I started ninth grade at Riverside High School in 1986.<\/p>\n
Q: What were your high school years like in El Paso?<\/p>\n
A: I was struggling because the home I went to live in was with my aunt and uncle. In my book, (their pseudonyms are) Joseph and Sophia. They were very structured, very disciplined. They taught me a lot. My home back in L.A. was very chaotic. No structure, no discipline. So when I went into my dear Joseph and my dear Sophia\u2019s house, there was structure. There was a routine, and I just wasn\u2019t used to that. I wanted to go back home. I missed my mom and I missed my dad and I just wanted to go back home. I felt abandoned. I felt like everything that I had worked for, in keeping my brother, myself and my little sister together just went out the door because all three of us were separated when my uncle (Ramirez) got arrested.<\/p>\n
Q: When did you first reveal the allegations against your uncle?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: At 16, I first revealed that my uncle had molested me. I revealed it to a social worker in CPS (Child Protective Services), because I had run away (from home) and they questioned me. That was the first time I actually said it. Nothing was ever said or done about it. I didn\u2019t hear anything, so I didn\u2019t say anything again. Then, I wrote a letter to a friend. The letter was intercepted by my mother. And then my mother took it to my grandmother. That\u2019s when my grandmother started asking me about it. I think that when I ran away, it was the bottom of the spiral. Because I had already been very rebellious, stealing, shoplifting, ditching school, lying, all of it. And it began shortly after I moved to El Paso.<\/p>\n
Q: You were in El Paso when the verdict was read. What do you remember from that day?<\/p>\n
A: The day in September they said that he was guilty, I was 18. I was working at Big 8 (grocery store). During that time, my dad came back from L.A., because my dad had stayed out there as a point of contact for whenever family went over there. So, I walked in one day, and my dad was, like, right there in front of the TV and he was cussing at the TV. I\u2019m, like, \u201cWhat is he watching?\u201d And then that\u2019s when I saw that they were escorting (Ramirez) out and he said, \u201cIt always came with the territory \u2026 See you in Disneyland.\u201d Then I thought, \u201cwhy did he say that?\u201d I\u2019ve always wondered, why would he say that?<\/p>\n
Q: What was the feeling you had after he was sentenced?<\/p>\n
A: I was, like, \u201cWow, my life has changed so much in four years.\u201d Because by that time I already had a baby. I had already gone through a lot of other things. I had already been a runaway. I got raped during those four years by someone else. I lived the gang lifestyle during that time, too. I was 19 when I decided to change, to try to turn things around for me and my son. But, yeah, I thought to myself, \u201cWow, in those four years (between Ramirez\u2019s arrest and sentencing), so much has happened.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: You corresponded with your uncle while he was in prison. Can you describe that experience?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: I was living in Germany when I really started, like, consistently writing to him. My husband at the time was in the military and we got stationed in Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Before that, it was 1989. I had gone to a church and I prayed and I asked God that I was just tired of the way everything was going right now. I needed to change. So, then that\u2019s when I decided that I no longer was gonna wear the black, heavy eyeliner, the Sharpie eyebrows. No more Dickies and no more chukka boots, none of that, I was going to change the way I looked. So, I went ahead and did that in 1990. I got married. And the Gulf War started. I got married to a soldier. He was in the Army. Somebody totally different.<\/p>\n
I moved to Kentucky. When I was in Kentucky in \u201991, it was the goodness of God. Because I had already been approached several times throughout my childhood and growing up about getting saved and serving God and this and that. But, it was the goodness of God in 1991. We were living in a trailer. We had enough food in our house. Me and my son were OK. It was quiet. It was stable. It was nice. And I told God, \u201cGod, you\u2019ve been so good to me. I don\u2019t deserve all this with everything that I\u2019ve done.\u201d I said, \u201cYou\u2019ve been chasing me for a long time. And I\u2019ve been running from you. So, I\u2019m in a different state, in a different city. Wherever you want me to go to church, I\u2019m gonna go.\u201d The next day, in less than 24 hours, a little girl came and invited me to church. And I went. I went.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then in \u201992, I was still following that path of serving God, getting in his word and just, slowly, my healing began. And then I went to Germany, and then I started talking, writing to my uncle. He asked me what I do and what\u2019s my life like now and everything. And I started sharing with him. I even started sharing about God and God\u2019s forgiveness. I told him in one of my letters, I told him that I forgave him. I told him, \u201cA lot of times the adults think that kids, because they\u2019re asleep, they don\u2019t remember. But sometimes during those times, those kids were just pretending to be asleep.\u201d And he told me, \u201cI know you were pretending. I\u2019m sorry about those times.\u201d Then, soon after that, I told him, I want to write a book one day. And he said that he\u2019d be OK with me if I wrote a book. And, so, here I am doing a hard thing.<\/p>\n
Q: When did the assaults occur?<\/p>\n
A: I was 6. So, from when I was 6 till I was 12. There\u2019s an 11-year difference between me and him. When he turned 18, that\u2019s when he moved (to California). I was 7 years old. This all happened in L.A. So, that\u2019s when his family was visiting out there because they would send him over there in the summers, too. He was sleeping in our bedroom. So, it was six years, whenever he was there.<\/p>\n
Q: Do you recall the last letter you got from him and what it said?\u00a0<\/p>\n
A: We had a falling out between me, him and his mother. Because his mother continued to question me throughout the years. She wanted to know if it was true. No matter how many times, even after showing her the letter, she didn\u2019t believe me. So, she would always bring it back up again, asking me the same things. She wanted me to go to California and to confront him in front of her. I wrote to him. I told him, \u201cYou need to come clean with your mom because she wants to know the truth. I\u2019ve already told her, and she doesn\u2019t believe me.\u201d And he wouldn\u2019t. He told me that he can\u2019t do that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then I told him, \u201cIf you don\u2019t do that, I can very easily go to any talk show, present my case. Tell them to give me a lie detector. And you know I\u2019ll pass.\u201d And, so, he got very fearful because he\u2019s in prison. And (he didn\u2019t want to be labeled a) child molester. So, he wrote to and he called his mom and told her what I had said. She went to my house and she said that I had the devil inside me. I told her, \u201cI was just wanting you to give you what you wanted, was the truth.\u201d I didn\u2019t talk to her again for 18 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Soon after that, I got a divorce. My uncle wanted to write to me. And he did write to me because my dad said he was worried about me. But I didn\u2019t respond. He told me that he was reading his Bible. But I just felt it was just a ploy to get me back into writing to him. But I didn\u2019t. Then, in 2000, he wrote to me again, another little short note. I didn\u2019t respond because, um, I just felt it was just another ploy to get me to write to him again. The fact that he didn\u2019t want to come clean with his mother, I was not gonna entertain it anymore.<\/p>\n
Q: Can you talk about the day Richard Ramirez died?<\/p>\n
A: The day that he died, it was my bridal shower. I was getting married to my current husband. He died on (the day of) my bridal shower. Yeah, I was, like, \u201cThis man just has a way of sneaking in every day.\u201d It was early in the morning. The family didn\u2019t know he was sick. He kept it to himself. Him and my brother were experiencing the same cancer (B-cell lymphoma) at the same time. But he never told anybody. My brother went through the treatment and he came out of it. And he was doing good and he was responding to treatment. That was in March. That month, I was with my dad in Los Angeles and we pulled over to eat, and (Ramirez) called my dad. He wanted to talk to me, and I motioned to my dad, \u201cNo.\u201d I should have taken that call. But, he had cancer, too, at the same time. But we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, then, on June 7th, that morning, it was all over the news that he had died. My sister called me because my sister was my maid of honor and she was doing the bridal shower. She said, \u201cDo we cancel it?\u201d I\u2019m like, \u201cNo, we\u2019re not gonna cancel it. He\u2019s not gonna take over another thing from me.\u201d And, so, no, we didn\u2019t cancel it. But in the back of my mind, it was there the whole time, the whole day. My grandmother took it hard, so did my dad. My grandmother, yeah, it was hard for her. I don\u2019t blame her, losing a child. No one wants to lose a child. You\u2019re supposed to die first as a parent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But something happened to me when he died. I started getting nightmares. Why? Because, in my mind, he\u2019s free now. He\u2019s not behind bars anymore, and he was mad because I had spoken out. And, so, in my nightmares, he was chasing me. And then I was hiding from him. Back, like, when we were kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Q: At what point did you decide to write the book, and what made you feel ready to tell your story publicly?<\/p>\n
A: I had slowly begun revealing (the abuse) in 1991 when I started going to small group Bible studies and stuff like that. I started opening up and that only happened because I had seen a show that Oprah Winfrey had done on sexual molestation and sexual abuse. She said something that no matter how old you were, no matter how your body reacted, no matter if you had a crush on your (abuser), you were a child, they were an adult. It was not your fault. And, so, that really broke me that day. So, then, little by little, I started sharing and the healing started. When you keep it inside, it eats you up. But as soon as you start sharing it and talking about it with other people, there\u2019s a healing that starts happening because it\u2019s out. Like when you\u2019re sick with a stomach virus, and you throw up, then after that, you feel so much better. Same thing. And so little by little, I started sharing it.<\/p>\n
Q: What do you hope people take away from your book?<\/p>\n
A: I didn\u2019t write the book for my family. I didn\u2019t write it for my (six) kids. I wrote it for any person who has survived some of the things that I just mentioned. Because there\u2019s a lot more in the book that I went through.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I wrote the book for those people that have survived traumatic events in their childhood, in their teenage years, even in their young adult years. It is for those that say that, \u201cI don\u2019t know if I can continue.\u201d You can. There is hope for you. Ask God to help you. God will help you because all of that, God will turn it around for something good.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BR_RosieJuarez-2-2.jpg\")
A copy of Rosie Ju\u00e1rez\u2019s memoir, \u201cHis Niece,\u201d sits on the table during an interview April 7, 2026, detailing her experiences, the abuse she says she endured and her process of healing. (Brandy Ruiz \/ El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n