The Horrific Violence, Murder and Abuse “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez Grew Up Around
Richard Ramirez, who brutally murdered more than a dozen people, grew up in an abusive household and witnessed his cousin kill his wife as a teen.
About a decade before Richard Ramirez gained infamy as the “Night Stalker” serial killer, the chilling statement, “There’s no thrill like a good kill," had made an indelible impression on him.
The assertion was made by an older cousin, according to Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes, now streaming on Peacock.
The docuseries details how Ramirez grew up surrounded by disturbing dysfunction. As a kid, Ramirez heard stories about mutilating women, witnessed a point-blank execution, and was exposed to extreme physical violence by family members.
Circumstances drove him “to sleep at the cemetery rather than be in the house,” Gary Brucato, a clinical and forensic psychologist, said on the docuseries. “The dead are not going to fly off the handle and hurt you.”
Richard Ramirez’s “explosive” father
Ramirez had four older siblings and has been described as a happy but “shy little boy,” said forensic psychologist and author Joni Johnston.
“He loves music. He’s not causing any problems in early school,” she said. “There were a lot of qualities in little Richie that we see get warped, the older he gets.”
Ramirez’s father, a former police officer from Mexico who worked for the railroad, had “an explosive temper,” Johnston said. Ramirez saw his dad beat his oldest son “severely to the point where the other siblings are hiding.”
Ramirez’s brother Robert Ramirez confirmed that their father directed his rage at his kids. “One time he got me with a water hose, and he hit me. He was gonna shoot Richie. He was so mad,” Robert said, adding that another brother hid the gun.
Richard Ramirez’s cousin told him "dark stories"
In the Peacock docuseries, family members and Ramirez himself acknowledged that his older cousin Mike was a key figure in his life.
When Ramirez was around 12, Mike became a sort of mentor. Mike taught his cousin “the stealth maneuvers that one uses to take a life, showing him violent images, telling him dark stories,” Brucato said on Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes.
“I looked up to him,” Ramirez said in old interview recordings from prison that are featured in the docuseries. He described Mike as “vicious, mean, strong, determined.”
Mike served in the Vietnam War, "and during his time there, he had photographed and kept trophies from violent acts that he began committing against Vietnamese women," Brucato said in the docuseries.
Mike showed “pornographic pictures of VC women” to Ramirez, one of his brothers said in the documentary. “He cut their heads off. He had ears around his neck.”
Ramirez recalled seeing such photos that his cousin Mike had when he was around 11 years old. “I didn't mind seeing all that gore and violence,” he said. “It was a turn on. It was exciting.”
A teenage Richard Ramirez witnesses his cousin kill his wife
Four years later, Ramirez was at Mike’s house when his cousin fatally shot his wife in the head, and blood sprayed on Ramirez, who was just 15 at the time.
The teen returned weeks later to the crime scene with his father to collect items for Mike. Ramirez was struck by the gory atmosphere.
“I realized at that point it was something I enjoyed seeing more so than the average individual,” he said.
Richard Ramirez becomes the “Night Stalker”
A decade later, Ramirez had grown into a devil-worshiping serial killer who terrorized California and became known as the “Night Stalker.”
He was arrested in August of 1985, and convicted of 13 murders and sentenced to death. In 2009, DNA evidence linked Ramirez to the 1984 rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in San Francisco.
As unsettling as Ramirez’s youthful experiences are, they don’t absolve him from blame, according to Johnston.
“We all know people who’ve had horrendous childhoods who grew up not only to not be perpetrators, but to be advocates for victims,” she said in the documentary.
“It’s very, very important to highlight that the potential pitfall is making childhood trauma, abuse, neglect an excuse for somebody’s later actions.”
Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes is streaming now on Peacock.
