Let's talk about the Night Stalker
the true crime that's worth your time
Richard Ramirez would have been 63 this month. He died nearly a decade ago (June 7, 2013, if you’re keeping track) in a hospital in tony Marin County, California — a place that catered to both the area’s wealthy denizens and folks incarcerated at nearby San Quentin who had conditions beyond the penitentiary hospital’s abilities.
When convicted of his crimes in 1989, the sentencing judge handed down 19 death sentences. Back then, the state still engaged in regular executions (the corrections department keeps a list, if you’re interested), and Ramirez seemed resigned to his fate, saying outside the courtroom "Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland."
But as opposed to the blaze of glory it seems like he’d likely envisioned, Ramirez went out with a whimper — the official cause of death was lymphoma, but sources I spoke to at the time said all his organs were failing as a result of ongoing and regular substance use, which though against Quentin rules (of course) was and is rampant. This is especially true on death row, where one’s existence is painfully tedious and, given the state’s de facto ban on executions, probably feels endless.
In the 34 years since Ramirez started his sentence, we’ve seen as many, if not more, properties depicting him and/or his crimes than any other serial killer active within (excepting y’all youngsters) our lifetime. Some of them have been impactul, meaningful works (I’d count Netflix’s Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer) among those, while others — like the multiple takes Ryan Murphy has offered across two seasons of American Horror Story, seem to give a middle finger to pundits warning against making real life serial killers fun and sexy.
It’s inevitable that Ramirez will be the focus of even more properties in the coming years — with the popularity of shows like (uh, oh, Murphy’s) Dahmer series, and the subsequent successful award season for Evan Peters, the clock, she is ticking.
So what I want to talk about is multi-faceted, I guess. First, is there actually a way to tackle Ramirez via dramatic adaptation in a way that isn’t ultimately vile and offensive? Are there true crime properties on the killer and case that might help guide such a project — and are there others that offer a negative example? I have some ideas, myself, but first I want to hear what you think. — EB