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Closing Statement

Anne Tam
5th hour
October 15, 2009

The Nightstalker

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury:

The criminal has finally been caught. Though i would like to say that catching this criminal has been an easy task, i cannot. It has taken over a year to finally bring this criminal to justice, and many lives have been lost along the way.

Looking across the room, i can see Richard Ramirez sitting calmly in his seat as he waits for the decision of the court. Although the terrifying Nightstalker has finally been caught, the fear he instilled in some of his surviving victims are obviously still there. The first time that The Nightstalker struck was in June 1984 in Los Angeles, California, and his first victim was a young woman who was stabbed to death in her own home. Now imagine how terrifying that would be? You think of your home as a safe haven, a place to relax, but if you left your window open, you could most likely become the next victim of The Nightstalker.

Now lets look at the "pattern" that Mr. Ramirez followed. The murders always followed a set pattern, often happening in the early hours of the morning, and most likely when a window was open. The Nightstalker would first cut the phone lines before entering the house and shooting any adult males he saw in the head. All his female victims were raped, often next to the bodies of their dead partners. Again, imagine how the females felt as they were being sexually assaulted next to a friend or maybe even their husbands or fiances. Not only did he rape and kill his victims, he also made them "swear upon Satan" at the murder.

Even now as i look at Richard Ramirez, he shows no sympathy or compassion for his victims. Sitting there with such a calm look on his face as if he did nothing wrong infuriates me. How is it humanly possible for someone to kill so many people without feeling a strip of sympathy? It seems impossible, however, as i sit here staring at the murderer, i can now see how it is possible for the notorious Nightstalker.

Now let's look at the clues and evidence that led to the capture of this murderer. In August 1985 in Mission Viejo, a young couple was attacked at home. Following his "pattern", the Nightstalker first shot the male through the head before raping the female. Although the female was terrified, she managed to memorize the license plate number of the killer's old orange Toyota as he drove off. The car was then found out to be stolen in Chinatown while the owner was eating in a restaurant. Though police officers watched the car around the clock in case the killer returned, he did not, and it forced that officers to remove the car for forensic examination. Good idea because experts managed to lift a partial fingerprint.

After locating the fingerprint, the fingerprint was scanned across a computerized fingerprint database system installed by the LAPD in 1985.