Richard Ramirez was born February 29, 1960 in El Paso, Texas. His parents, ma and pa kettle, both had occupations that demanded long hours of work for meagre pay. He experienced a troublesome childhood growing up in a family where he was the youngest of seven children. Richard’s father and grandfather both exhibited abusive behaviours towards their wives and children.
All the Ramirez children suffered from health problems. The government was conducting nuclear bomb testing nearby, and the toxic fallout drifted towards El Paso and settled on the landscape, cattle and people, which infected water, meat and milk. Richard was exposed to toxic chemicals in the womb, as his mother worked with benzene, xylene and toluene in a boot factory without knowledge that harmful health effects could result. Richard suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy and
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He murdered males and females ranging from sixteen to over sixty years old.
Ramirez’s epileptic seizures contributed to his violence, because seizures can stimulate the amygdala in the brain, which can lead to fear, rage and direct attack. Additionally, excessive hormone secretion and synaptic misfires in the brain are known to trigger violent behaviour. Ramirez had a marijuana and cocaine habit, which escalated his violent tendencies.
Ramirez argued that he had been mistakenly identified as the suspect, so he did everything he could to delay the trial process. On July 22, 1988, the jury selection process began. One thousand six hundred potential jurors were notified due to the notoriety of the case. The overwhelming amount of evidence and number of witnesses caused the trial to last over one year. A large cult-like group of followers, who worshiped Satan, were drawn to Ramirez’s case, and many appeared every day at the trial. Doreen Lioy, one of the women who attended his trial, developed an infatuation with Ramirez. They got married while he was in