Natural Born Serial Killers, Jimmy Digital [novel24 .txt] 📗

that he had taken everything of value, he told her to "swear on Satan".

On July 20, 1985, Ramirez purchased a machete before driving a stolen Toyota to Glendale. He chose the home of Maxon Kneiding, 68, and his wife Lela, 66. He burst into the sleeping couple's bedroom and hacked them with the machete, then killed them with shots to the head from a .22 caliber handgun. He further mutilated their bodies with the machete before robbing the house of valuables. After quickly fencing the stolen items from the Kneidling residence, he drove to Sun Valley. At approximately 4:15 am he broke into the home of the Khovananth family. He murdered the household patriarch, Chainarong Khovananth, by shooting the sleeping man in the head with a .25 caliber handgun, killing him instantly. He then repeatedly raped the man's wife, Som kid Khovananth, beating and sodomizing her. He bound the couple's

 

terrified eight-year-old son before dragging Somkid around the house to reveal the location of any valuable items, which he stole.

During his assault he demanded that she "swear to Satan" that she was not hiding any money from him.

On August 6, 1985, Ramirez drove to Northridge and broke into the home of Chris Peterson, 38. Ramirez crept into the bedroom and startled Peterson's wife Virginia, 27; he shot her in the face with a .25 caliber semi-automatic handgun. He shot Chris Peterson in the temple and attempted to flee, but Peterson fought back and avoided being hit by two more shots during the struggle before Ramirez escaped. The couple survived their injuries.

On August 8, 1985, Ramirez drove a stolen car to Diamond Bar and chose the home of Elyas Abowath, 31, and his wife Sakina, 27. Sometime after 2:30 am he entered the house and went into the master bedroom. He instantly killed the sleeping Elyas with a shot to the head from a .25 caliber handgun. He handcuffed and beat Sakina while forcing her to reveal the locations of the family's jewelry, and then brutally raped and sodomized her. He repeatedly demanded that she "swore on Satan" that she wouldn't scream during his assaults. When the couple's three-year-old son entered the bedroom, Ramirez tied the child up and then continued to rape Sakina. After Ramirez left the home, Sakina untied her son and sent him to the neighbors for help.

Ramirez, who had been following the media coverage of his

 

 

crimes, left the Los Angeles area and headed to the San Francisco Bay area. On August 18, 1985, Ramirez entered the home of Peter Pan, aged sixty-six, and killed the sleeping man with a gunshot to his temple from a .25 caliber handgun. Pan's

wife, Barbara, 62, was beaten and sexually violated before being shot in the head and left for dead. At the crime scene Ramirez used lipstick to scrawl a pentagram and the phrase "Jack the Knife" on the bedroom wall.

On August 24, 1985, Ramirez traveled 76 miles south of Los Angeles in a stolen orange Toyota to Mission Viejo, and broke into the house of Bill Carns, 29, and his fiancée, Carole Smith, 27, through a back door. Ramirez entered the bedroom of the sleeping couple and awakened Carns when he cocked his .25 caliber handgun. He shot Carns three times in the head before turning his attention to Smith. Ramirez told the terrified woman that he was "The Night Stalker" and forced her to swear she loved Satan as he beat her with his fists and bound her with neckties from the closet. After stealing what he could find, he dragged Smith to another room to rape and sodomize her. He then demanded cash and more jewelry, making Smith "swear on Satan" there was no more. Before leaving the home Ramirez told Smith, "Tell them the Night Stalker was here. As he left in the Toyota, thirteen-year-old neighbor James Romero III noticed the same "weird-looking guy in black" that he had seen earlier in the night and thought suspicious, and he decided to write down as

 

 

much of the license plate as he could. Carole Smith untied herself and went to a neighbor's house to get help for her severely injured fiancé. Surgeons were able to remove two of the bullets from his head, and he survived his injuries.

When news of the attack broke, Romero told his parents about the strange man in the orange Toyota, and they immediately contacted the police and provided the partial license plate number. Carole Smith was able to give a detailed description of Ramirez to investigators. The stolen car was found on August 28 in Wilshire, and police were able to obtain a single fingerprint from the rear view mirror despite Ramirez's careful efforts to wipe the car clean of his prints. The print was positively identified as belonging to Richard Muñoz Ramirez, who was described as a 25-year-old drifter from Texas with a long rap sheet that included many arrests for traffic and illegal drug violations.Law enforcement officials decided to release a mug shot of Ramirez from a December 12, 1984 arrest (photo, below right) for car theft to the media, and "The Night Stalker" finally had a face. At the police press conference it was announced: "We know who you are now, and soon everyone else will. There will be no place you can hide.

 

The Night Stalker Captured

Ramirez was 24 years old when he began his serial murders. This mugshot of Ramirez, taken on December 12, 1984 after an arrest

for car theft, directly led to his apprehension.

On August 30, 1985, Ramirez took a bus to Tucson, Arizona to visit his brother, unaware that he had become the lead story in virtually every major newspaper and television news program

across the state of California. After failing to meet his brother, he returned to Los Angeles early on the morning of August 31.

 

He walked past officers who were staking out the bus terminal in hopes of catching the killer should he attempt to flee on an outbound bus. He walked a few blocks to a convenience store in East Los Angeles. After noticing a group of elderly Mexican women fearfully identifying him as "El Matador" (or "The Killer"), Ramirez saw his face on the covers on the newspaper rack and fled the store in a panic. After running across the Santa Ana Freeway, he attempted to carjack a woman but was chased away by bystanders, who pursued him. After hopping over several fences and attempting two more carjackings, he was eventually subdued by a group of residents, one of whom had struck him over the head with a metal bar in the pursuit. The group held him until police arrived and took Ramirez into custody.

 

The Night Stalkers Trial And Conviction

 

At his first court appearance, Ramirez raised a hand with a pentagram drawn on it and yelled, "Hail, Satan.On August 3, 1988, the Los Angeles Times reported that some jail employees overheard Ramirez planning to shoot the prosecutor with a gun,

 

which Ramirez intended to have smuggled into the courtroom. Consequently, a metal detector was installed outside the courtroom and intensive searches were conducted on people entering. On August 14, the trial was interrupted because one of the jurors, Phyllis Singletary, did not arrive at the courtroom. Later that day she was found shot to death in her apartment. The jury was terrified; they could not help wondering if Ramirez had somehow directed this event from inside his prison cell, and if he could reach other jury members. However, Ramirez was not responsible for Singletary's death; she had been shot and killed by her boyfriend, who later committed suicide with the same weapon in a hotel. The alternate juror who replaced Singletary was too frightened to return to her home.

On September 20, 1989, Ramirez was found guilty of all charges: 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries. During the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, 1989, he was sentenced to die in California's gas chamber. He stated to reporters after the death sentences, "Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland."

 

The case cost $1.5 million, which at the time made it the most expensive in the history of California, until surpassed by the O. J. Simpson murder case in 1994.By the time of the trial, Ramirez had fans who were writing him letters and paying him visits. Beginning in 1985, freelance magazine editor Doreen Lioy wrote him nearly 75 letters during his incarceration. In 1988 he proposed to her, and on October 3, 1996, they were married in California's San

 

Quentin State Prison. Before Ramirez's death, Lioy stated that she would commit suicide when Ramirez was executed. However, Doreen Lioy and Richard Ramirez eventually separated and at the time of his death, Richard Ramirez was engaged to a twenty-three year old writer who was residing between Los Angeles and New York City. By some estimates, he would have been in his early seventies before his execution was carried out, due to the lengthy California appeals process.

On August 7, 2006 his first round of state appeals ended unsuccessfully when the California Supreme Court upheld his convictions and death sentence. On September 7, 2006, the California Supreme Court denied his request for a rehearing. Ramirez had appeals pending until the time of his death.

Leonard Lake & Charles Ng

Charles Ng & Leonard Lake

Leonard Lake (October 29, 1945 – June 6, 1985) was born in San Francisco, California. His parents separated when he was 6 years old, after which he and his siblings were sent to live with their maternal grandmother. He was reportedly a bright child, but had an obsession with pornography that stemmed from taking nude photos of his sisters, apparently with the encouragement of his grandmother.