Ricardo Leyva Munoz Term Papers

During the years of 1984 and 1985, a burglar turned rapist and killer hunted the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco. He became the phantom who would drive through the streets in the still of night, looking for his next home invasion. This serial killer had terrorized the residents and would strike with no known pattern and with no mercy. He would become to be know as the Night Stalker. Ricardo Leyva Munoz Ramirez, known as Richard Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas on February 29, 1960. He was the youngest of five children born to Mexican immigrant parents. His father was a former policeman from Mexico, who had a bad temper and physically abused his children. His mother a dedicated Catholic, had a very difficult pregnancy with Ramirez,

He had also become close to his older cousin, Miguel who was also know as Mike. Mike who was a Greenbrae and had served in the Vietnam war, started sharing some gruesome stories with the eleven year old Ramirez. Mike would share how he would take innocent woman to the jungles, tie them to trees, raping and killing them. He not only shared the stories, but he would even show Ramirez the photographs he had taken of these horrific acts. Mike was also teaching Ramirez the techniques of the warfare, and ended up demonstrating this on his wife. During an argument, as Ramirez was watching, Mike took out his gun and shot his wife in the head instantly killing her. This act took away any innocence that was left in

Stealing a car and returning to Orange County, he once again killed a man and raped his finance. After the description of the rapist was given to the Orange county police, they were furious, and believed this was the work of the Night Stalker. During the same time, Ramirez decided to get rid of the stolen car, and take a greyhound to Arizona. But Ramirez failed to notice the night of the crime, a teenager fixing his bike had taken note of his license plate. When the license plate was provided to the police, they were able to find the abandoned car, and found the killers fingerprint on the rear view window. Fortunately at this time California’s finger print system was up and running, and the police was able to match the fingerprint to the same auto theft suspect from 1983. The Night Stalker was finally given a name, Richard