理查德·拉米雷兹

文化描写

2002年，美国电影《Nightstalker》。

2016年，美国电影《夜袭者》。

2021年，Netflix美国纪录片《夜行者：极恶连环杀手》（Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer）。

Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez (; February 29, 1960 – June 7, 2013), better known as Richard Ramirez, was an American serial killer, sex offender, and burglar whose killing spree occurred in Greater Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area in the state of California. From April 1984 to August 1985, Ramirez murdered at least 15 people during various break-ins. With his crimes usually taking place after dark, Ramirez was dubbed the Night Stalker, the Walk-In Killer, and the Valley Intruder. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 and died while awaiting execution in 2013.

Ramirez's crimes were heavily influenced by a troubled childhood. Frequently abused by his father, he developed brain damage and started abusing drugs at the age of 10. He began developing interests in the macabre in his early and mid-teens from his older cousin, a Vietnam War veteran with schizophrenia and PTSD, who extensively bragged about the war crimes he had committed, and who killed his wife in front of Ramirez when Ramirez was 15. Ramirez learned military skills from him that he later employed during his killing spree. He cultivated a strong interest in Satanism and the occult. By the time he had left his home in Texas and moved to California at the age of 22, Ramirez frequently used cocaine. He often committed burglaries to support his drug addiction, many of which were later frequently accompanied by murders, attempted murders, rapes, attempted rapes and battery.

The murder spree terrorized the residents of Greater Los Angeles and later the San Francisco Bay Area over the course of 14 months. His first known murder occurred as early as April 1984; this crime was not connected to Ramirez, nor was it known to be his doing, until 2009.……

Early life and education

Childhood

Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 29, 1960, to Mexican immigrants Mercedes Muñoz and Julián Tapia Ramirez, the youngest of their five children. His father, a railway laborer, was a violent alcoholic who was prone to fits of anger that often resulted in physical abuse towards the household. Ramirez was brought up a Catholic. He began smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol at the age of 10.

Adolescence

Shortly after Ramirez had turned 14 in 1974, he began using LSD frequently.……

Murders

Murder of Mei Leung

On April 10, 1984, Mei Leung, a nine-year-old girl, was murdered in the basement of her apartment building in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Leung was with her eight-year-old brother and looking for a lost one-dollar bill when Ramirez approached the girl and told her to follow him into the basement to find it.……

Night Stalker crimes

Two months after the murder of Leung, Ramirez initiated a series of violent home invasions that sparked a moral panic in Los Angeles and later San Francisco.……

Capture

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 California. After failing to meet his brother due to his not being home, he returned to Los Angeles early on the morning of August 31.……

Trial and conviction

Jury selection for Ramirez's trial began on July 22, 1988. At his first court appearance, he 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 he intended to have smuggled into the courtroom.……

Incarceration and death

While awaiting trial, Ramirez reportedly met actor Sean Penn, who had been jailed for 33 days in 1987 for reckless driving and punching an extra on the set of the film Colors. Penn said Ramirez had asked for his autograph through a deputy and later sent him a friendly note, to which he wrote back telling Ramirez he had no sympathy and hoped he died in the gas chamber.