‘Night Stalker’ dies in Calif. prison

LOS ANGELES — Richard Ramirez was a demonic serial killer who left satantic signs at murder scenes and mutilated victims’ bodies during a reign of terror in the 1980s.

After a long trial that ended in 1989, Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders that terrorized Southern California in 1984 and 1985 as well as charges of rape, sodomy, oral copulation, burglary and attempted murder.

The Death Row inmate known as the Night Stalker died early Friday of liver failure. He was 53.

His marathon trial was a horror show in which jurors heard about one victim’s eyes being gouged out and another’s head being nearly severed. Courtroom observers wept when survivors of some of the attacks testified.

Satanic symbols were left at murder scenes and some victims were forced to “swear to Satan” by the killer, who entered homes through unlocked windows and doors.

Ramirez was finally run down and beaten in 1985 by residents of an East Los Angeles nei g hborhood while attempting a carjacking. They recognized him because his picture had appeared that day in the news media.

The trial of Ramirez took a year, but the entire case which was bogged down in pretrial motions and appeals lasted four years.

After his conviction, Ramirez flashed a twofingered “devil sign” to photographers and muttered a single word: “Evil.”

On his way to a jail bus, he sneered in reaction to the verdict, muttering: “Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”

Inexplicably, Ramirez had a following of young women admirers who came to the courtroom regularly and sent him love notes. Richard Ramirez

Some visited him in prison, and in 1996 Ramirez was married to 41-year- old freelance magazine editor Doreen Lioy in a visiting room at San Quentin prison.

Relatives called Lioy a recluse who lived in a fantasy world.