Night Stalker: 13 Richard Ramirez Facts From Netflix Horrifying Docuseries
Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker) in episode 4 “Manhunt” of Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. Cr. NETFLIX © 2021

Night Stalker, the new Netflix docuseries bearing the nickname of one of California’s most notorious serial killers spares not a single gory detail of the reign of terror that Richard Ramirez inflicted on greater Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1980s.

Just about every detail from Netflix’s new Night Stalker docuseries is unsettling, but we’ve compiled the 13 most outrageous ones for you here, from the pentagram tattoo on the palm of his hand to his creepy last statement before being convicted of murdering 13 people.

1. His smile, riddled with rotten and missing teeth, was compared to that of a “killer clown” by Esther Petschar, who was there when Ramirez bought his infamous AC/DC cap — which would later show up at a crime scene — at a Los Angeles thrift store.

2. Ramirez was a vocal worshipper of Satan who often drew pentagrams on the walls of victims’ homes — and even on their bodies.

Also Read: Meet Doreen Lioy, the Woman Who Married Richard Ramirez

3. More than one of Ramirez’s survivors recalled swearing to God that they would do whatever Ramirez asked if he would spare their life. His response: “Don’t swear on God — swear on Satan.”

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4. He raped and tortured several of his victims, who ranged across ages and genders from young children to the elderly.

5. After brutally killing his victims and leaving their bodies where they lay, he was known to go into their refrigerators and help himself to whatever food was there, leaving discarded remnants, like banana peels, behind for the police to find.

6. At the scene of at least one of his crimes, police also discovered evidence that he had masturbated on the victim’s living room floor after killing them.

7. One survivor recounted being abducted when she was six years old, explaining that Ramirez had lifted her out of her bed in the middle of the night, put her in his car, and driven her to his apartment, where he then made her crawl into a duffle bag before he took her inside and sexually abused her. He released her at a gas station later that night, telling her to call 911 so her family could find her.

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8. He was so obsessed with pentagrams that he had one tattooed on the palm of his left hand, which he famously showed off during his trial.

9. He was also caught on camera exclaiming “Hail Satan” in the courtroom.

10. Ramirez had groupies. After his identity was made public and he was caught, several women sent love letters photos of themselves to him in prison. This isn’t mentioned in the docuseries, but he later married one of those women, Doreen Lioy, who was convinced of his innocence. However, Lioy left him in 2009 when DNA evidence proved that Ramirez had raped and murdered a nine-year girl San Francisco girl named old Mei Leung, whose body he left hanging from a water spigot in her family’s basement, according to SFGate.

11. The docuseries also mentions that Ramirez himself was a victim of child abuse at the hands of his father. According to the book The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez by author Philip Carlo, who spent over 100 hours with him at San Quentin State Prison while he was on death row, Ramirez’s older cousin also showed him photos of raped and brutally murdered Vietnamese women when he was 12 years old. That same cousin later shot his wife in front of Ramirez.

Nightstalker Richard Ramirez Night Stalker

12. Ramirez believed that everyone has inherent evil in them. Here is part of his statement, which he recited before being convicted of 13 murders: “You don’t understand me. You are not expected to. You are not capable of it. I am beyond your experience. I am beyond good and evil… I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells within us all. That’s it.”

13. Ramirez died of cancer on death row in 2013, where he had been awaiting his death sentence since 1989.

 

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