In four parts, Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer follows detective Gil Carrillo and homicide investigator Frank Salerno as they try to find clues to seemingly unrelated crimes before realizing they were all connected—and finally hunting down Ramirez.
But he died before his planned execution. What happened to Ramirez, and how exactly did he die? He died in jail in He was the 87th inmate in the state to die while awaiting execution, according to CNN. The vengeance that Ramirez promised apparently never came to fruition. Neither did the state's plan to execute him. Ramirez became the 59th inmate in the state to die in this manner while awaiting execution, not including 22 who committed suicide and six dead of other causes.
Ramirez was born to a large family in El Paso, Texas. He was in his late teens when he landed in Southern California in the s. Media reports indicated that he had a history of drug use, some arrests on relatively minor charges, and no evident purpose in life over his first few decades. It was then that horrific tales began to surface of a man breaking into homes, mostly in Southern California, in the wee hours of the morning. On several occasions, a man who happened to be inside was killed quickly.
A female might be raped, sometimes more than once. Then the man who'd become known as the "Night Stalker" would ransack the home looking for valuables. There were gory exceptions to this scenario. Like year-old student Tsai-Lian Yu, found lying bloody on the ground near her running car in Monterey Park, California, according to media reports. The Ramirez series spares few details, often exposing the disturbing and graphic nature of his crimes.
Authorities were able to arrest Ramirez and later present enough evidence to ensure that he was convicted for the murder of 13 people in But the way in which Ramirez was ultimately caught was something of a stroke of luck. In California in , the identity of a suspect who committed random attacks and killings left authorities stumped and residents terrified. A footprint left at multiple crime scenes left a clue to his identity, but victims who survived Ramirez's attacks help paint a clearer description.
Details began to pour in. The suspect had bad teeth. He wore a distinctive jacket. A stolen car a key witness saw the suspect driving included Ramirez's fingerprint. They requested to print the car, but they couldn't access the vehicle for weeks. In the meantime, the killer was still on the loose, and the clock was ticking.
July 7, , two days after the Bennett attack, year-old Joyce Nelson was murdered in her home in Monterey Park. Police found Avia sneaker footprints on the side of Nelson's head and on the concrete outside of her home. The same night, less than a mile away, Sophie Dickman was sexually assaulted in her Monterey Park home.
By this time, the media was starting to suspect what the police already knew: There was a serial killer and rapist on the loose in Los Angeles. The media coverage had citizens scared that they — that just about anyone — could fall victim to this still-unknown prowler. The day after the Nelson murder, Carrillo and Salerno finally got their hands on the stolen Toyota. But they weren't able to recover any fingerprints.
Police paid a visit to the dentist's office and discovered that their suspect had just visited five days earlier, not long before the Bennett, Nelson and Dickman attacks. Ramirez was using the alias "Richard Mena" and a fake address. The dentist gave the police X-ray scans that showed an impacted tooth. Police efforts to intercept the killer at the dentist's office were unsuccessful.
The gun used in the Kneiding murders matched the one used in the Dayle Okazaki case back in March. The same morning that police were investigating the Kneiding murders, another body turned up a few miles away in Sun Valley. Chainarong Khovananth was found shot to death with a caliber gun, the same gun used in the Kneiding and Okazaki killings. His wife and son were sexually assaulted but left alive. A few days later, in Northridge, California, Ramirez walked through an unlocked door to the home of husband and wife Chris and Virginia Peterson and shot both in head.
Luckily, neither bullet hit any vital organs. Virginia Peterson screamed, and Chris reportedly got out of bed and chased Ramirez out of their house. Two nights after the botched Northridge attack, the killer broke into a home in Diamond Bar, a city in eastern Los Angeles County. Again, the husband was executed. Shell casings at the scene matched the ones found at the Northridge shooting. Again, the wife was sexually assaulted and told "don't look at me.
Ten days after the Diamond Bar attack, San Francisco Police were called to the scene of a now all-too-familiar crime. The husband, year-old Peter Pan, had been shot and killed, the wife, Barbara Pan, was raped and shot but survived the attack. A Satanic symbol was carved into the wall. Glendale police asked for ballistics information on the shell casings at the scene. As it turned out, the bullets matched the ones found at the Northridge and Diamond Bar attacks.
She publicly revealed, for the first time, that police had tied the cases together with shell casings and the Avia shoe print. Two more botched attacks happened in Orange County in late August Then, a young man named James Romero came forward with some information: He'd seen a suspicious car in his Mission Viejo neighborhood. Romero recalled the make and model of the car and part of the license plate.
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