Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Night Stalker - The Richard Ramirez story

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

This is the story of Richard Ramirez aka The Night Stalker

At a racetrack, you'll find everything you need to get through the day ahead. The morning hits hard when you get up early. You're obviously tired and looking surly. Grab some made-in-store breakfast, freshly ground coffee, ice cold drinks, delicious hot food and snacks all in one stop. The day is long and can feel like a grind. But you'll get fully stocked and everything will be fine. Race track is here to keep you going.

An all-day haul to get you. Racetrack, whatever gets you going. One day, this kid, he's 12, he's hanging out with his older cousin. And older cousin is like, hey, come here, let me tell you about my time in the war. And so older cousin starts to tell these gruesome stories about some of the things he did back in the Vietnam War, about people he had unalived and women he had done horrible things to, like unspeakable things that I can't even describe on this app, otherwise my video will get removed. But then, to prove it, he busts out some Polaroid photos to show younger cousin.

And most of these photos are of women. and they are absolutely brutal. And strangely, little cousin, he isn't grossed out. Actually, he's fascinated. And about a year later, the cousins are together again. And the younger cousin, his name's Ricardo, and the older cousin, his name's Mike. And so Ricardo and Mike, they're hanging out at Mike's place.

And Mike, he suddenly gets into an argument with his wife. And he gets so mad that he pulls out a pew-poo, and he ends up unaliving her, right there in front of Little Ricardo. And again, Ricardo isn't grossed out. He's fascinated. Now, you can decide whether all that actually messed him up or not. Because shortly after that, Ricardo starts getting into drugs, particularly the kind that make you hallucinate.

And he starts committing petty crimes and shoplifting all the time. And he gets really, really into his religion. And eventually, he just says fuck it and he drops out of high school. A few years later, Ricardo's 17. And he gets a job at a local holiday inn. And while he's working his shift, He starts sneaking into the guest's rooms while they're asleep, and he'll steal their valuables. But then he goes even further and he starts trying to essay some of the guests.

And he eventually gets caught and bam, they fire him. Oh, but it gets much worse. About five years later, Ricardo is 22, and he moves from Texas to San Francisco to get a fresh start. But instead of getting a job, he spends most of his time just doing drugs. And he basically just gives up on hygiene, like the only thing he eats are junk food and soda. And he like never brushes his teeth, so they inevitably start to rot. So he's just a stank ass at this point. And after about two years of living this stank ass lifestyle, Ricardo suddenly decides, ah, you know what? I'm going to start murdering people. Sounds like fun. And then one day,

while he's out in the neighborhood, Ricardo spots a girl. And she's nine, and the girl has lost a dollar bill, and she's out looking for it. And so Ricardo approaches her and he's like, hey, I know where your dollar bill is. I can show you, follow me. And so she follows him into the basement of the hotel where he's living. And there, he does horrible things to her, and he eventually unalives her. Oh, but he doesn't stop there. Three months later, he moves to Los Angeles. And there, he gets a room in a hotel on Skid Row, and he starts doing a lot more gross. And one night, he starts stalking this 79-year-old woman who lives in the suburbs. And he breaks into her house, and then he essays her, and he unalives her with a night. Then he just steals all her money and her expensive jewelry. Nine months later, he strikes again.

One night he hides in this woman's garage and he waits for her to get home. And when she finally does, he suddenly steps out and he pulls out a pew-poo and bang, he unalives her. Then he goes into her house and he sees the woman's roommate and bang, he unalives her too. Then about an hour later, he's at a local park and he spots a random woman sitting in her car. And he suddenly grabs her and he drags her out of it and then he pulls out his pew-poo and he unalives her as well. And yeah, it just keeps getting worse. Because 10 days later, Ricardo breaks into a house at night, and he shoots a man while he's sleeping.

And then the man's wife wakes up, and she tries to fight back. And so Ricardo shoots her too, and then he unalives her with a knife. Then he steals her eyes, and he puts them in a jewelry box to take with him as a souvenir. And so Ricardo just continues on this streak of murder and S.A., and he unalives at least five more women and five more couples. Usually he'll break into their home at night, execute them, and then he'll draw religious symbols at the scene of the crime. Now at this point, police are looking at this string of attacks,

and they're starting to think, You know, there might be a serial killer on the loose here. So they start investigating, but as of now, they don't have much. They have some descriptions of him, they have some sort of fingerprints, and they have some shoe prints they found at some of the crime scenes. But interestingly enough, Ricardo's shoe print is unique. There had only been one pair of that brand of sneakers sold in Los Angeles in his size.

So maybe they're on to something. Meanwhile, the news media is reporting on all of this. And so stories about his string of murders are blowing up all over the news. And the media starts referring to him as the Nightstalker, which, to be fair, is a much cooler name than his stank-ass deserves. But with all this news coverage, Ricardo is starting to feel the heat. And he doesn't want to get caught. So he leaves Los Angeles and he moves all the way back to San Francisco.

And there, in San Francisco, like the first thing he does, He breaks into a couple's home and he unalives them, and he draws another religious symbol on the wall. And so police, they investigate this. And they're like, oh, is the Nightstalker now in San Francisco? Now, the mayor of San Francisco, Mayor Diane Feinstein, she gets on TV and she holds a press conference. And she reveals that the police have identified the Night Stalker's shoes from all those shoe prints he left behind. And then she holds up a police sketch showing the world roughly what Ricardo looks like. And Ricardo, he sees this press conference on TV, and he's like, oh snap, they're on to me.

And he heads right over to the Golden Gate Bridge, and he throws his shoes over into the water. So he'll never leave those shoe prints again, and they'll never catch him that way. And then a few days later, he moves back to the Los Angeles area. And then one night, Ricardo drives a little bit south of that area, and he tries to break into another family's home. But that fails. And then later, he breaks into a different couple's home. And then he shoots the husband and essays the wife before he arrogantly identified. He says, tell them the Nightstalker was here.

So then later, when that woman talks to police, she's able to give them a description of Ricardo. And police had also found a car he had stolen with one of his whole ass fingerprints in it. And from that fingerprint, police are finally able to use new technology to identify it and start piecing all this together. And because Ricardo had been arrested in the past for auto theft,

his fingerprints are already in the system. So now, boom, police know, No, the Nightstalker is Ricardo. And they now have not just a crude police sketch of the Nightstalker, but an actual old mugshot of Ricardo. So police hold a press conference, and they release the mugshot to the media. And suddenly, Ricardo's picture is all over the news. And everyone is on the lookout for this serial killer.

Two days later, Ricardo's in Los Angeles, and he's at a convenience store. Probably buying junk food or whatever, because it's rotten-ass teeth. But anyway, that's when people start to recognize him. Hey, isn't that that guy the Nightstalker? So Ricardo panics and he runs out of the store and he sees a car and he immediately tries to steal it. And during all this commotion, more people recognize him. Yeah, I think that is the Night Stalker. And some of the bystanders grab him and they pull him out of the car.

Then he runs across the street and he tries to steal another woman's car keys. And that woman's husband retaliates and hits Ricardo over the head with a whole ass fence post. Where he got a fence post? I don't know. So now Ricardo's wounded and he's running away. And ten citizens. citizens are chasing him down, and they finally catch him, and they hold him down. And they beat the living shi- out of him. I'm sure it was glorious.

But then eventually, police show up, and then bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And they charge his stank ass with 13 counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, 11 SAs, and 14 burglaries. And he's found guilty of everything, and he's sentenced to death by gas chamber. Oh, but here's the craziest part. While he's on death row, he gets fans. And those fans start writing him and like visiting him in prison.

And one of those fans he falls in love with and they get married. So this stank-ass serial killer on death row somehow finds love and gets married. Why are you still single? Anyway, he later died of cancer.