Netflix is about to deliver us another true crime documentary series to obsess over.
Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer follows the investigations of two Los Angeles detectives into the mysterious Night Stalker in the 1980s.
Active from April 1984 and August 1985, Richard Ramirez was a notorious serial killer, burglar, and rapist in Los Angeles and San Fransisco.
During this terrifying time that Ramirez terrorised the residents of these cities, the the media dubbed the then-unknown culprit as “The Night Stalker”.
Describing himself as a Satanist, The Night Stalker used guns, knives, hammers, and machetes to slaughter his victims.
Ramirez had a pattern of attacking women under the darkness of night in or around their homes, often going on to beat, mutilate, and sometimes raping the bodies of these women.
(Image: Bettmann Archive)
Ramirez was also reported to have left lyrics from heavy metal songs and pentagrams songs scrawled at the scenes of his crimes.
Thankfully, it was one of the survivors of Ramirez’s vicious crimes and his own fingerprints that led to his capture.
In August 1985, Inez Ericksom has been brutally assaulted and raped by The Night Stalker after he had broken into her home and shot her fiancé Bill Carns three times in the head before turning his attention to her and forcing her to swear love for Satan.
Ramirez left Inez alive and departed, with Inez making it safely to a neighbour’s before medical attention saved Bill’s life.
Inez gave a very detailed description of Ramirez to investigators before days later the police found a stolen orange Toyota car that Ramirez had previously stolen.
(Image: ©2021 Netflix, Inc.)
(Image: ©2021 Netflix, Inc.)
The fingerprints were identified as Ramirez, who had a long list of previous charges against him including traffic and drug violations.
A mugshot from a previous 1984 arrest was then finally released to the media, with police declaring he would no longer be able to hide.
On August 30, 1985, Ramirez tried visiting his brother but was entirely unaware that his mugshot was now the lead story of every major newspaper and news show in California.The Night Stalker now had a face.
(Image: Getty Images)
(Image: ©2021 Netflix, Inc.)
Being aware that something was wrong when his brother failed to meet him Ramirez was on the street when a group of elderly Mexican women called him ‘El Matador’ (The Killer) in the street, prompting him to try to hijack a car.
The local people then turned on Ramirez and chased him away, prompting him to hop multiple fences before the residents managed to subdue him and left him severely beaten when the police finally arrived to apprehend him.
Richard Ramirez was ultimately convicted of 13 counts of murder, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and four burglaries.
(Image: ©2021 Netflix, Inc.)
(Image: ©2021 Netflix, Inc.)
The highly publicised trial of The Night Stalker cost $1.8million at the time, with Ramirez ultimately being sentenced to die in the gas chamber.
Ramirez stayed on death row at San Quentin State Prison and even went on to marry his pen pal and long-time fan Doreen Lioy on October 3, 1996.
For years, Lioy claimed that she would end her own life when Ramirez was executed.
However, the pair went on to separate in 2009.
(Image: REX/Shutterstock)
Yet, by the time of his death, The Telegraph reports that he was engaged to 23-year-old writer Christine Lee.
Ramirez died from complications secondary to B-cell lymphoma at the age of 53 on June 7, 2013, having been on death row for 23 years.
Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer is released on Netflix on January 13, 2020.
Originally from https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/night-stalker-how-vital-moment-23278462