"Night Stalker's" El Paso connections

Reprinted from the El Paso Times
By Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times/June 8, 2013
The El Paso man known as the “Night Stalker” for a notorious rampage of rapes and murders in California during the 1980s died June 7 at a hospital in Greenbrae, San Quentin state prison officials said.
Richard Ramirez, 53, died of natural causes, prison officials said in a statement.
Lt. Samuel Robinson, spokesman for the prison in California, said that Ramirez was pronounced dead at 9:10 a.m. Friday, June 7.
“He died of natural causes at Marin General Hospital,” Robinson said.
Ramirez was found guilty in 1989 of 13 counts of murder and several other counts of attempted murder, sexual assault and burglary, crimes that occurred between June 1984 and August 1985. He was sentenced to death in 1989. He lost the appeal for his conviction and sentence in 2006.
Authorities said angry residents in East Los Angeles captured Ramirez, who was trying to steal a vehicle, after his picture had been plastered in newspapers and on television as a suspect in a series of slayings.
The El Paso native gained extra notoriety when he flashed in court an open hand on which he had drawn a pentagram. Police said this symbol was found at some of the crime scenes linked to him.
Ramirez’s relatives in El Paso said Friday that they were in mourning and wished to have their privacy respected during this period.
“We are mourning the loss of our son and brother, Richard Ramirez,” the family told the El Paso Times. “The world judged him, whether fairly or unfairly, it no longer matters. He is now before the true judge, the judge that sees and knows all things. We ask that you respect our sorrow and grief.”
Doreen Lioy, a freelance magazine editor whom Ramirez married in 1996 while an inmate, declined to comment by telephone.
Ramirez, also known as Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez, had several connections to El Paso, including during his California trial.
The case created a stir in El Paso when police assisted in serving a search warrant in 1985 to look for a shoe box suspected of containing the eyes of one of Ramirez’s victims.
Texas District Judge Bill Moody was first assistant to the El Paso district attorney when he was assigned to help prepare the search warrant.
“I was playing golf at Ascarate Park with Police Chief Bill Rodriguez when all these patrol cars came on the course,” Moody said. “Detectives from Los Angeles came out of the patrol cars, and told us they needed a search warrant. They wanted to search the home of one of Ramirez’s relatives in El Paso. Apparently, Ramirez had mailed some of the items they were looking for to the El Paso address.
“I left the golf course and spent the rest of the afternoon making sure the search warrant affidavit was legally correct. The detectives found items, I think several jewelry pieces, but no eyes, that prosecutors used in the case.”
Ramirez’s father, the late Julian Ramirez, told the El Paso Times in 1989 that he could not believe his son would commit such brutal crimes, and he blamed drug use for his son’s anti-social behavior.
“I’ve accepted he was a thief, but I’ve never accepted that he did the things they say he did,” Julian Ramirez said. “The media turned him into a monster. He’s really just a poor boy who was raised to believe in God.”
Although he first confessed to the crimes, Richard Ramirez later denied any wrongdoing. His trial was lengthy and complex, and two of the victims’ families filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against him. During the trial, one of the jurors was killed by her boyfriend, but the proceeding continued.
Former El Paso Times reporter David Hancock was asked by prosecutors in the Richard Ramirez trial to testify about a 1985 article he had written after interviewing the defendant’s father. Prosecutors wanted to rebut allegations that Richard Ramirez was in El Paso during two of the crimes in California attributed to him.
 Hancock, who is now with CBS, worked for the Miami Herald when he testified in 1989 that Ramirez’s father said he had not seen his son in a couple of years, which contradicted the alibi testimony presented by the defense.
In a 2009 blog for CBS News 48 Hours Crime Insider, Hancock wrote, “As I answered the prosecutor’s questions, I remember nervously glancing over a few times at Ramirez, who sat completely still, hidden behind large sunglasses. He scared me; I was already nervous about testifying in a criminal trial, and he seemed to give off what I can only describe as an ‘evil’ vibe. I decided it was best not to look at him.”
The family had retained El Paso lawyer Manuel Barraza to help in Ramirez’s defense, although Barraza had to defer to defense lawyers in California because he was not licensed to practice law in that state. Back then, lawyer Joseph “Sib” Abraham said he also considered assisting with the defense.
Richard Ramirez was the youngest of five children of Julian and Mercedes Ramirez. The family lived near the Lincoln Center in East-Central El Paso before moving to the Lower Valley.
Ramirez dropped out of the ninth grade while a student at Jefferson High School. When he was 18 years old, he left for California, where police said he drifted from one end of the state to the other, often staying at cheap hotels.
Art Rodriguez, who attended Jefferson High School, said Friday that he remembers seeing Ramirez in the hallways.
“He didn’t stand out in any way. He looked and dressed like the rest of the students back then,” Rodriguez said. “Someone who knew him told me that he was bullied by other students.”
According to El Paso Times archives, Richard Ramirez took part with other youths in occult rituals in the El Paso desert, which included drinking the blood of animals.
Before his run-ins with the law in California, the El Paso police had arrested him at least three times on suspicion of possessing marijuana, according to newspaper archives. The first arrest was in 1977, when he was 17. He was arrested again in 1979 and 1982. The amounts of marijuana involved were less than 2 ounces.
San Quentin prison officials said that since 1978, when California reinstated capital punishment, 59 condemned inmates, including Ramirez, died of natural causes, 22 committed suicide, 13 were executed there, one was executed in Missouri,  and six died from other causes. There are 735 prisoners on California’s death row.
Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at [email protected]; 546-6140.