Notorious San Francisco: The Night Stalker
Serial killer Richard Ramirez lived at this hotel on Hyde Street in the Tenderloin the week the Night Stalker shot and killed 66 year-old Peter Pan as Pan slept in his home near Lake Merced on August 17, 1985. Mrs. Pan was badly beaten but lived to describe the attacker, who fit the description of the Night Stalker, the unidentified satanist who had brutally killed more than a dozen people by home invasion in the Los Angeles area at the time Mr. Pan was killed. A couple of weeks later, on August 28, Ramirez, a 25-year-old drifter from Texas, was identified by fingerprints recovered from a Toyota Ramirez stole after shooting 29-year-old Bill Carns in the head and raping Carns' fiancee Renata Gunther in Mission Viejo. Carns and Gunther survived the attack. Ramirez, who had a pentagram tattooed on his hand and was a perfect likeness to the Night Stalker profile,  was described as an ardent Satanist and drug addict who adopted the AC/DC song Night Prowler as a spiritual anthem. Night Prowler includes the lyrics: "Too scared to turn your light out, 'Cos there's something on your mind, Was that a noise outside your window? What's that shadow on the blind? As you lie there naked, Like a body in a tomb, Suspending animation, As I slip into your room." Physical evidence and specific links to Ramirez and the crimes through satanic messages left for police by the killer confirmed Ramirez was the Night Stalker. Within a few days of being identified, Ramirez was mobbed and beaten by civilians in East L.A. as he tried to steal a car. Reportedly, police saved Ramirez from being killed by the citizens who captured him. Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders and 30 felonies on September 20, 1989. Today, Ramirez is a Death Row inmate at San Quentin Prison, awaiting execution for the Los Angeles area crimes. He has not yet been tried for the murder of Pan and others he is suspected to have killed or attacked. In 1995, authorities put the case against Ramirez for the killing of Pan on permanent hold. San Francisco police also suspect Ramirez in the murder of Masataka Kobayaki, who was part owner and chef of Masa's on Bush Street when he was killed during the Night Stalker's seige on California. 

Copyright 2001 Hank Donat
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