How 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez copied Charles Manson murders, was equally popular among female groupies
SAN, QUENTIN, CALIFORNIA: Although serial killer Richard Ramirez a.k.a the 'Night Walker' -- who terrorized Southern California in 1985 -- had no fixed modus operandi -- his victims included men and women of all ages and his murder weapons were not constant -- the last few murders he committed evoked the style of cult leader Charles Manson.
In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries and was sentenced to death in the gas chamber. His MO changed in the last few murders he committed as he drew pentagrams on the walls of some of his victims’ homes. Manson was a satanist cult leader, who, in mid-1967, formed what became known as the "Manson Family", a quasi-commune based in California. His followers committed nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969.
Satan Worshippers
Ramirez, who was a Satan worshipper, was unfazed when Superior Court Judge Michael A. Tynan pronounced the sentence. Wearing dark glasses, he uttered a rambling, nearly inaudible statement in court. “You don’t understand . . . and you are not expected to, you are not capable of it,” he was heard saying. “I am beyond your experience. I am beyond doing evil. Legions of the night, night breed. Repeat not the errors of the Night Stalker and show no mercy. I will be avenged.” He ended his statement with “Lucifer dwells within us all.”
Throughout his hour-long sentencing, he sported a grin on his face and rocked back and forth on his chair. That was not the first time Ramirez referred to Satan. During his preliminary hearing, he appeared in court one day with a pentagram drawn on the palm of his hand and flashed it to reporters as he said: “Hail, Satan!”
"I am sure that generations and generations from now, the image of his palm with the pentagram and the sound of his voice saying, 'Hail, Satan,' they'll be there. It was pretty clear, even then, that we were in for a roller coaster ride and this wound its way through the courts," Tony Valdez, a reporter for Fox KTTV News said in the Netflix docu-series 'Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer.'
A month before being sentenced to death, Ramirez had sneered at the possibility of becoming a death row prisoner. “Big deal, death comes with the territory,” he told reporters at his sentencing recommendation. “See you in Disneyland.” After his September conviction, Ramirez flashed a two-fingered “devil sign” at photographers and muttered one word - “Evil," according to the Los Angeles Times. Apart from this, he also left Satanic symbols at murder scenes (including pentagrams and one that read 'Jack The Ripper') and made some victims "swear to Satan" after entering homes through unlocked windows and doors before sexually assaulting them or their relatives.
Manson, who spent nearly half a century behind bars, orchestrated the slayings of pregnant actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski, and six other people. His followers - sent by him to carry out the killings - scrawled “Pigs” and “Healter Skelter” in the victims’ blood at two homes on successive August nights in 1969.
In 2017, legendary journalist Geraldo Rivera, who had interviewed Manson behind the bars, spoke up, saying that Mason "told me in our epic televised 1988 face-to-face confrontation inside San Quentin that he could save our over-populated planet if he could just 'kill 50 million' of us." On the news that Manson has died, he said, "Don’t rest in peace, Charlie. Go instead to be with your friend, the Devil."
Female fan following
During the trial, Ramirez attracted several groupies who wrote to him regularly. The trial scene had hints of the Charlie Manson trial, with women hanging around, clad in black robes. So much so that Ramirez actually ended up marrying one of them while in prison - 41-year-old Doreen Lioy.
The marriage took place on October 3, 1996, when Ramirez was 36 years old. Lioy was a self-proclaimed virgin and a magazine editor. She was one of many women sending love letters to the Night Stalker after his arrest in 1985. She continued to pursue a relationship with Ramirez, and in 1988, he finally asked her to be his wife. Due to prison regulations, the couple had to postpone their marriage plans until 1996.
Despite being raised a Catholic, Lioy respected Ramirez's satanic worship. She demonstrated this when she gave him a silver wedding band to wear since satanic worshipers do not wear gold.
Although Manson has been married several times, one of his almost marriages happened in 2014 which was very similar to Ramirez. It was announced that the imprisoned Manson was engaged to 26-year-old Afton Elaine Burton and had obtained a marriage license on November 7.
She had been visiting him in prison for at least nine years and maintained several websites that proclaimed his innocence.The wedding license expired after a few months without a marriage ceremony taking place after Manson discovered that Burton only wanted to marry him so that she and friend Craig Hammond could use his corpse as a tourist attraction after his death.