forensic files

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.