|
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. |