It's probably the worst interview of my career, my face-to-face jail house chit-chat with notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez.
Ramirez is perhaps best known as "the Night Stalker", a West Texas drifter who descend on Southern California in the early '80s like a deadly disease. Ramirez was former Catholic alter-boy who as a teen turned into a glue-sniffing Satan worshiper. After making his way to California, Ramirez started off his bloody crime spree by slipping through windows and robbing homes.
Soon, however, he graduated to slitting throats. He raped, he tortured and he murdered.
I first got to know Richard through some of his groupies--women who were crazy about Ramirez and who were literally fighting with each other outside a San Francisco jail--competing for the killer's attention.
By the time I got involved in the story, Richard had already been convicted of 13 grisly murders in Los Angeles. His L.A. trial: a complete freak show--bizarre and outrageous even by the twist standard of LaLaLand.
During the lengthy court proceeding, Richard frequently liked to amuse himself by yelling obscenities at the judge--wearing sunglasses--smirking and smiling at people in the gallery--and flashing a satanic pentagram that he had printed on the palm of his hand. It was a crazed courtroom carnival with Richard Ramirez as the rock star ring leader.
Despite the theatrics, however, in the end justice was served. Richard Ramirez was found guilty.
And by the time I got on the scene, Richard was up in San Francisco--cooling his jets in a big, ugly downtown jail in the city by the bay. Ramirez was waiting to go on trail for a 14th homicide--the brutal killing of a man with the unlikely name of Peter Pan. The 66-year-old Mr. Pan and his 64-year-old wife Barbara had been savagely attacked in their bay area home one night--shot while laying in their bed. Mr. Pan died. Mrs. Pan was badly injured and never fully recovered.
I was working as a reporter for the tv show "A Current Affair"....Rupert Murdock's first smutty stab at television journalism in the U.S. on what was then known as his "fledgling" FOX network. I covered a lot of smutty stories for A Current Affair back in those days and this one was a doozey.
Among the girls who were battling with each other over Richard's affections was real cast of characters--a small time porn star--a ditzy but sweet single mother with two kids--even one of the female jurors from Ramirez's L.A. trial had become obsessed with the long-haired devil worshipper. She had followed Ramirez from Southern California up the coast to San Francisco and she was one of the women who was now frequently causing trouble outside the jail.
The single mom--on the other hand--sort of became a friend of mine and she let me tag along one afternoon when she went into the jail to visit Richard.
It was one of those filthy big city dungeons--clanging metal doors and concrete floors--a hellhole designed to cage human animals. In the poorly lit visiting room, inmates sat on one side of a thick pane of shatterproof glass while visitors sat on the other. They talked to each other through telephone receivers hanging from the walls.
While we were in there, two other women were also there visiting some other guy. They, however, were not doing a lot of talking over the telephone. Instead the women were taking turns lifting up their shirts and hiking up their skirts very openly exposing themselves--much to the delight of their locked-up friend.
At first I started looking around to see if some jacked-up jailer was going to come rushing in and to put a stop to this jail house hanky-panky--but no one did. I then thought to myself 'why would they?' No one was getting hurt and the turnkeys in this incredibly dreary place were probably watching the x-rated spectacle on some video monitor somewhere--enjoying every moment of the show.....more to come....mw
