He looked like any other child—dark eyes, a shy smile, a face filled with innocence. Born in El Paso, Texas, in 1960, no one could have imagined that this little boy would grow up to become one of the most feared men in American history.
He was the youngest of five in a working-class Mexican American family. His mother worked at a shoe factory, and his father was an army veteran who ruled the house with explosive anger. Friends described the boy as quiet, withdrawn—a loner who rarely smiled. But behind closed doors, life was filled with fear and violence.
His father’s temper was brutal. By age six, the boy had already suffered several severe head injuries from beatings, which led to temporal lobe epilepsy. Sometimes, as punishment, his father would tie him to a cemetery cross overnight, leaving him alone among the graves.
By the time he turned ten, he was already numbing himself with alcohol and marijuana. As a teenager, he would wander the El Paso desert at night with his father’s .22 rifle, hunting coyotes, rabbits, and birds. When the night was over, he sometimes disemboweled the animals and fed their entrails to his dog.
At fifteen, he witnessed something that shattered what little innocence remained. His cousin Miguel “Mike” Valles, a Vietnam veteran who regularly showed him Polaroids of women he’d tortured during the war, shot his wife in the face during an argument. The boy saw it happen.
After that, he changed completely. He dropped out of school in ninth grade and retreated into isolation. He began spending time with his sister’s husband, a man obsessed with spying on women. Together, they prowled neighborhoods at night, peering through windows.
By twenty-two, he had moved to California, drifting between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Addicted to cocaine and surviving through thefts and burglaries, he had become a drifter with no direction. Psychologists would later call him a “made” psychopath—a product of trauma and environment rather than genetics.
In April 1984, he committed his first known killing. Nine-year-old Mei Leung was found dead in the basement of her San Francisco apartment building—beaten, strangled, and hanged from a pipe. DNA evidence would later confirm his guilt.
Two months later, he struck again, stabbing seventy-nine-year-old Jennie Vincow to death in her sleep and nearly decapitating her. It was the beginning of a reign of terror that would make the name “Night Stalker” infamous.
Between March and August of 1985, he unleashed a series of horrific attacks across California, breaking into homes at random, killing men, women, and children. His crimes were brutal—some victims were shot, others bludgeoned or stabbed—and he often assaulted his female victims.
What shocked the public even more was his obsession with Satanism. He forced victims to swear allegiance to the devil, drew pentagrams on walls, and carved symbols into their skin. In one case, he gouged out a woman’s eyes and kept them as trophies. In another, he left the imprint of his sneaker on a victim’s face.
As fear spread through California, police worked tirelessly to connect the crimes. The big break came when a thirteen-year-old boy, James Romero III, spotted a suspicious man outside his Mission Viejo home and noted his car’s make, model, and partial license plate. That lead resulted in the discovery of a fingerprint on the car’s mirror, which matched a 25-year-old drifter with a history of petty crime: Richard Ramirez.
Authorities released his photo on August 29, 1985. The next morning, the streets of Los Angeles erupted into chaos as a manhunt began. Ramirez saw his own face on the front page of La Opinión newspaper and tried to flee, but residents recognized him. A group of angry locals chased him down, beat him, and held him until police arrived. After months of horror, the Night Stalker was finally caught—by the very people he had terrorized.
His trial in 1988 was as disturbing as his crimes. He smirked in court, flashed pentagrams drawn on his hands, and shouted “Hail Satan!” When sentenced to death the following year, he sneered and said, “Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”
Richard Ramirez spent 24 years on death row in San Quentin, where he married a fan who had written him letters. He died in 2013 from lymphoma, unrepentant until the end.
Looking back at his childhood photos—the innocent boy who would one day become the Night Stalker—it’s almost impossible to comprehend how such evil could grow from such beginnings. But perhaps the most haunting truth is that no one saw it coming.