This week Murder Made Me Famous spotlights the shocking and horrific killing spree conducted by Richard Ramirez, who became known as the Night Stalker.
Ramirez was about 24-years-old when he started killing, with the murder and rape of a 9-year-old girl in San Francisco being linked to him years later via DNA. His most infamous string of killing began in 1984 while he was staying at the notorious Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles when he started a killing spree that sent locals into panic and captured the imagination of the press.
Typically Ramirez would break into a home in order to rob it, often surprising the owners in bed. Then he would usually shoot any man present in the head and then torture anyone left alive to reveal where they kept their valuables. He also raped and sodomised many of his victims, regardless of their age or frailty. He’d also use any object that was handy to kill and torture his victims, with hammers, light cords, electricity and kitchen knives all being used by him.
Ramirez was also a Satanist and mutilated several of his victims by carving pentagrams and other occult imagery into their skin. He even cut out the eyes of one victim and placed them in a jewelry box.
He was able to operate out of the Cecil Hotel with some impunity, it being in an area of town the police seldom visited. After his crimes he’d return and dump his bloody clothes in the dumpster behind the hotel before brazenly walking in often wearing just his underwear.
After he was caught Ramirez expressed no remorse and he died aged 53 after over 20 years on death row.
Murder Made Me Famous airs on Saturdays at 9:00 PM on REELZ.
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