The a to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (48 page)

Richard Ramirez

They called him the “Night Stalker”—a shadowy fiend who would slip into darkened houses and savage the sleeping occupants. During his six-month rampage in the spring and summer of 1985, no one in Los Angeles felt safe.

Often, he would kill the husband first, then turn his depraved attentions to the woman. His victims—who ranged in age from thirty to eighty-three—were shot, slashed, bludgeoned, and viciously mutilated. In one case, he carved out the eyes of a forty-four-year-old woman and carried them off as
Trophies
. Sometimes, he daubed satanic pentagrams on the bodies before fleeing into the night.

Richard Ramirez; from
Murderers!
trading card set

(Courtesy of Roger Worsham)

By early August 1985, he was officially credited with more than a dozen homicides. A few weeks later, after attacking another couple—shooting the man in the head and raping the woman—he fled in their car. After recovering the stolen vehicle, police were able to lift a clear set of fingerprints, which turned out to match those of a small-time hood named Richard Ramirez. An all-points bulletin was issued for the suspect, and his mug shot was broadcast on local TV.

On August 31, Ramirez tried to yank a woman from her car in a Hispanic neighborhood in East LA. Her screams drew the attention of passersby, who recognized Ramirez and pounced on him. Only the timely arrival of the police saved the “Night Stalker” from the enraged mob.

At his trial, Ramirez (who had also been involved in numerous sexual assaults, including the abduction-rape of several small children) indulged in various bizarre antics. He enjoyed playing Satan, inscribing a pentagram on his left palm and flashing it to photographers, and making devil’s horns with his fingers while intoning, “Evil, evil, evil . . .” He was ultimately convicted of thirteen murders and sentenced to death. “Big deal,” he said with a sneer when the judge handed down the sentence. “Death comes with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”

According to his own estimate, the “Night Stalker” (who remains on
death row) was responsible for even more murders than the thirteen he was convicted of. “I’ve killed twenty people, man,” he told a fellow inmate. “I love all that blood.”

“You maggots make me sick. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells within all of us!”

R
ICHARD
“N
IGHT
S
TALKER
” R
AMIREZ
,

addressing the court after being convicted of thirteen murders

R
ECOMMENDED
R
EADING

Though the popularity of true-crime books has boomed in recent years, the genre itself dates back at least as far as 1621, when one of the bestselling tomes in England was a collection of real-life crime stories called
God’s Revenge Against Murder and Adultery.
Clearly, a comprehensive history of crime books would require a lot more space than we have at our disposal. Even a history of books dealing only with American serial killers is beyond the scope of this entry. As long ago as 1896, Frank P. Geyer—the Philadelphia detective who followed the trail of the notorious “multi-murderer” Dr. H. H.
Holmes
—published an account of his investigation,
The Holmes-Pitezel Case.
Since that time, virtually every serial killer of note has been the subject of at least one book. Covering all of them would take a book of its own.

Still, there are some volumes that anyone interested in serial killers should be aware of. Some of these deal with the phenomenon as a whole. These include: Thomas S. Duke’s
Celebrated Criminal Cases of America
(1910); L. C. Douthwaite’s
Mass Murder
(1928); Eric Hickey’s
Serial Murders and Their Victims
(1991); Jack Levin and James Alan Fox’s
Mass Murder: America’s Growing Menace
(1988); Elliott Leyton’s
Hunting Humans
(1988); Michael Newtons
Serial Slaughter
(1992); Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman’s
The Serial Killer
(1990); and the volume
Serial Killers
(1992), part of the “True Crime” series of Time-Life Books.

Capsule biographies of infamous serial killers are included in a number of encyclopedia-style collections. Jay Robert Nash’s sweeping
Bloodletters and Badmen
(1973) is the best known of these, but it has to be approached with a certain amount of caution, since it is rife with inaccuracies. Others include: Michael Newton’s
Hunting Humans
(1990); Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg’s
The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers
(1992); and David Everitt’s
Human Monsters
(1993).

In terms of full-length studies of individual serial killers, the following is an alphabetical list of selected world-class psychos and the books that examine their crimes.

The Axeman of New Orleans

Robert Tallant and William Kimber,
Murder in New Orleans
(1953)

Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez

Paul Buck,
The Honeymoon Killers
(1970)

David Berkowitz

David Abrahamsen,
Confessions of Son of Sam
(1985)

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono

Ted Schwartz,
The Hillside Strangler
(1981)

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley (The “Moors Murderers”)

Emlyn Williams,
Beyond Belief
(1967)

Ted Bundy

Ann Rule,
The Stranger Beside Me
(1988)

Andrei Chikatilo

Richard Lourie,
Hunting the Devil
(1993)

John Reginald Christie

Ludovic Kennedy,
Ten Rillington Place
(1961)

The Cleveland Torso Killer

Steven Nickel,
Torso
(1989)

Juan Corona

Tracy Kidder,
The Road to Yuba City
(1974)

Jeffrey Dahmer

Anne E. Schwartz,
The Man Who Could Not Kill Enough
(1992)

Albert DeSalvo

Gerold Frank,
The Boston Strangler
(1967)

Albert Fish

Harold Schechter,
Deranged
(1990)

John Wayne Gacy

Tim Cahill,
Buried Dreams
(1986)

Edward Gein

Harold Schechter,
Deviant
(1989)

Harvey Glatman

Michael Newton,
Rope
(1998)

Belle Gunness

Janet L. Langois,
Belle Gunness
(1985)

Gary Heidnik

Ken Englade,
Cellar of Horror
(1988)

William Heirens

Lucy Freeman,
Before I Kill More
. . . (1955)

H.H.Holmes

Harold Schechter,
Depraved
(1994)

Jack the Ripper

Donald Rumbelow,
The Complete Jack the Ripper
(1975)

Jack the Stripper

Brian McConnell,
Found Naked and Dead
(1974)

Edmund Kemper

Margaret Chaney,
The Co-Ed Killer
(1976)

Peter Kürten

Margaret Seaton Wagner,
The Monster of Düsseldorf
(1932)

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng

John Lasseter,
Die for Me
(2000)

Henry Lee Lucas

Joel Norris,
Henry Lee Lucas
(1991)

Charles Manson

Vincent Bugliosi,
Helter Skelter
(1975)

Dennis Nilsen

Brian Masters,
Killing for Company
(1985)

Carl Panzram

Thomas Gaddis,
Panzram: A Journal of Murder
(2002)

Marcel Petiot

John V. Grombach,
The Great Liquidator
(1982)

Jesse Pomeroy

Harold Schechter,
Fiend
(2000)

Richard Ramirez

Clifford Lindecker,
Night Stalker
(1991)

Joel Rifkin

Robert Mladinich,
The Joel Rifkin Story
(2001)

Dr. Harold Shipman

Brian Whittle and Jean Ritchie,
Prescription for Murder
(2000)

Charles Starkweather

Michael Newton,
Waste Land
(1998)

Peter Sutcliffe (“The Yorkshire Ripper”
)

David A.Yallop,
Deliver Us from Evil
(1980)

Jane Toppan

Harold Schechter,
Fatal
(2003)

Fred and Rosemary West

Colin Wilson,
The Corpse Garden
(1998)

Aileen Wuornos

Sue Russell,
Lethal Intent
(2002)

Zodiac

Robert Graysmith,
Zodiac Unmasked
(2003)

Psycho Fiction

One of the many things that distinguish Hannibal Lecter from real-life serial killers is that—while passionate about classical music, Renaissance literature, and fine Italian wines—he seems to care nothing about sex. Certainly we never see him indulge in anything as mundane as erotic activity. He appears to be a singularly celibate serial killer, who derives his deepest pleasure from dining on a perfectly sautéed human liver while savoring a first-rate Barolo and listening to the latest recording of Mozart’s
The Magic Flute.